


Who Tells Your Story

by lululawrence



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, M/M, Phone Sex, but i don't think there's anything triggering in here, i'm really awful at tags, ish, it's complicated - Freeform, just talk of illness, liam is just kinda mentioned, not life threatening!, okay i'm stopping now, okay now let's see, sorry liam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lululawrence/pseuds/lululawrence
Summary: Louis stands and is about to stop recording when he hears Fizzy say, “Holy shit, it’s really you!”Louis turns the corner, the camera focusing on a very familiar torso and tattooed arm causing Louis to freeze and glance up from the screen to see a dimpled smile.“Uh, yeah.  Hi, I’m Harry.”Without thinking, Louis answers, “Figured that much out, yeah.  Why are you here ?”  Wincing, he shakes his head and is about to take it back when he hears Harry laugh.“Well, I kinda wanted to surprise you, or Fizzy specifically.  So...surprise?”“Would you like to come inside?” Fizzy squeaks.  Harry Styles, pop star extraordinaire, nods his head and steps in with a soft word of thanks.  Louis quickly shifts to the side to allow Harry through their narrow hall and widens his eyes at Fizzy.Where should we take him? he mouths at Fizzy in worry.I don’t know!Louis flaps his free arm before scurrying to reset the living room from their interview setup and something more befitting an international celebrity.  Shit....or the one where Harry is a rock star, Louis is just another midwestern kid who put his dreams aside for his family, and a wig for Fizzy changes everything.





	Who Tells Your Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allwillzeroskill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allwillzeroskill/gifts).



> Okay, so many things to say here so I hope I don't forget anything!
> 
> This fic has been months in the making and I'm so happy with how it turned out, so dear allwillzeroskill, I hope it's everything you hoped for when you blessed me with your prompts!
> 
> I do want to say that while I looked into things surrounding Sundance, I made up some things because no matter the googling I did, answers were not easy to find. I also know basically nothing about the making of documentaries or film editing, so just go with what I say happens if you will please. I also took fictional license in the age difference between Louis and all the kids, so the age spacing doesn't exactly match up with real life. Outside of these things, I made it as realistic as possible so please forgive all errors!
> 
> I had amazing peeps, [KK](http://Waytoomanypeopleintheaddisonlee.tumblr.com) and [Tin](http://silentlarryshipper.tumblr.com), who read the fic while it was being written, as well as [Sheena](http://conscious--ramblings.tumblr.com), [Layne](http://laynefaire.tumblr.com), and [Chelsie](http://alienproof.tumblr.com) who helped keep me motivated to write, [Keri](http://icanhazzalou.tumblr.com) who gave me insight into your hopeful likes and dislikes, and a massive thanks to my beta [Lexi](http://Idareyoutotakealook.tumblr.com). Without this entire village of people, this fic wouldn't be here now. All of this still comes down to the fact that I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes, and all of those are my own. 
> 
> The title is from Hamilton, which is fitting considering certain happenings in the fic, and with that I hope you enjoy this work of fiction!

Felicite Grace Tomlinson, or Fizzy as she is more affectionately known, is the third of seven children in the Tomlinson-Deakin household.  She is a quiet girl, perhaps a bit mature for her age, but not without good reason.  

You see, Fizzy was born with congenital atrichia, which is a really fancy term for permanent hair loss at a young age. So young, in fact, that while she had been born with more hair than any of her siblings, it had all fallen out by the time she was two. At first, her mom was a bit worried but hoped she might have it grow back blonde instead, as had supposedly happened to one of her husband’s aunts. It soon became clear that would not be the case.

The doctors did numerous tests, and after nearly running the family’s financials into the ground, all while Jay was pregnant with twins, they determined the culprit was not a dangerous one, but indeed one that would cause her to live differently.

Due to lack of finances, she had never had the luxury of a nice wig she could wear daily and had learned to make do with hats and headscarves. Her older sister, Lottie, soon learned how to pencil on eyebrows for her so she wouldn't feel her face was “empty”, and that was that.

Children can be mean, however, and those who are different are most prone to bring out this undesired trait. Fizzy was brave and knew that she was more than her looks or the insults thrown her way and was able to surround herself with a loving family, but that didn't satiate her hope that one day she could at least have a nice wig so she could see what it was like to have hair. She had a strong sense of self and the personality to match, but she also wanted to be able to have it braided and to be there for her to play with when she was nervous. She wanted to learn how to do a nice style on herself and not just Lottie or the twins.

She wanted to, for once in her life, just feel normal.

She tried to hide these feelings, though. She wasn't much older than seven when her parents separated, and the divorce was final by the time she was eight, leaving her family with even less money to consider using for a wig than before. Her mom had no sooner gotten engaged to Dan before getting pregnant with another set of twins; at that point Fizzy knew she had to put herself to the side. She couldn't be selfish and ask for her family to spend the kind of money a nice, quality wig, made for everyday use required, when they had so many mouths to feed.

Fizzy decided instead she would research. When she was younger and still having tests done to make sure that congenital atrichia was in fact the only disease her body was carrying, the family was told that there were some lesser known charities to support families with children who suffer from congenital atrichia. As is expected for a charity such as one serving such a small population who were affected by an incredibly rare non-life threatening disease, the funding and financial support was hard to come by.  She had learned that one such charity though, called Skin Deep, had a wig donation service available.

They did warn that it could be years before she could get a wig, as donations for hair and natural wigs were even harder to come by than financial donations, but Fizzy added her name to the list anyway at the age of nearly thirteen and never told a soul.

Until today.

..*..*..*..

Louis drops his keys into the bowl by his door and kicks off his shoes.  He is exhausted after a long day working in the fraud department for the bank, which sounds much more exciting than it actually is. He leaves his bag on the kitchen table and opens the refrigerator just in time to hear rather demanding knocking.  It doesn’t stop. Louis checks his watch to find it’s 6:30, just as he thought, and he still has no idea who might be at the door.  He distractedly thinks about what he might be able to fix for dinner as he heads directly back to the door he so recently came through.  He pulls it open only to have Fizzy rush through and begin pacing through the hall and into his living room.

He closes the door muttering greetings to himself that she’ll never hear and follows his sister warily.  Fizzy, while also prone to dramatic reactions like Louis, usually freaks out to herself before calming down and talking things through with Louis later.  They are each other’s best friend and therefore this situation does happen on a somewhat regular basis, but he hasn’t seen her this worked up in ages and that worries him slightly.  What could have possibly happened since she texted him happily about her final grades for the semester?

“So, what exactly is going on?” he gently asks as she pulls at her headscarf so she can rub her bare scalp.  “Fizz, I’ll be honest, you’re scaring me a bit.”

That finally gets Felicite to stop and collapse on the couch before bursting into teary laughter.  

“Louis, I’m just...I don’t know where to start,” she finally says, taking a quick breath and proving herself wrong by continuing at a faster pace than before.  “Over a year ago I found a charity that helps with wig donations for those of us with congenital atrichia.  They don’t get those kinds of donations often, and most of the funds they receive help to alleviate financial stress for families since it is so expensive to get diagnosed. So they had told me they would let me know when my turn came.  They make truly incredible wigs, Lou.  Gorgeous.  I never thought my name would come up, I mean like I said before, not much hair comes to them.  Who out there even knows about congenital atrichia without knowing one of the few of us that have it?  God...but it happened!  They called today, and I’m up!  They just got word of a donation and within a month I’ll have my very own custom made wig, Lou!  Just for me!  Can you believe?”

Louis’ mind is reeling.  There is so much information she just gave him, he isn’t surprised she didn’t know where to start.

“So, you’re telling me that you signed up for this with a charity without bothering to tell us a word?”

Fizzy gives an apologetic smile before saying, “Sorry?  I just didn’t want to get my hopes up and it seemed so much more real if I told anyone.  You are the first I’ve told since speaking with them, though.”

Louis eyes her, still somewhat miffed she didn’t tell him anything earlier, before his face softens. He finally takes a seat beside his sister and wraps her into his arms for a hug and cuddle.

“Baby girl, you’re always beautiful, you know that, but I am so excited to see how much brighter your smile is with a wig that is made especially for you,” he says, completely heartfelt.  She is incredibly smart and he knows that she tries to not let her lack of hair bother her, but you can’t help but hear what others say.  All the years building up on her of having to hear remarks about how unfortunate that such an “otherwise pretty girl” has to be left bald, in addition to hitting the height of puberty couldn’t have made things easy for her.  This wig means so much more than just a way for her to feel pretty.  It is the stepping stone for her confidence as well.

“Thanks, Lou,” she sighs.  “I can’t stop thinking about it.  Will it be blonde?  Brunette?  Ginger?  Oh God, could you imagine me with red curly hair, like Doris?” she suggests, pure surprise at the very idea showing entirely on her face.

They spend the rest of the evening snacking on leftover Texas Roadhouse and coming up with ideas of what the wig will look like when it arrives.  It’s the best night Louis has had in ages.

 

..*..*..*..

Louis reviews what has to be probably his 752nd check for incoming check fraud that day (okay, so maybe it is only his sixty-fourth, but it _feels_ like hundreds), when his phone begins buzzing in his pocket, disturbing the Spotify playlist he had been listening to.  He arches his back, looking around to see if his team leads or manager are anywhere around before pulling it out to see who is calling.  As soon as he sees his mom’s face he locks the computer and walks to the break area where phone use is allowed.

“Hello?” he whispers, not quite to the phone area.  He really doesn’t want it to get sent to voicemail, thus beginning an enthralling and frustrating game of phone tag.

“Louis, how late are you working tonight?”  she sounds excited yet hurried.  What the hell is going on?

“Well, it’s a Tuesday so for some reason we’re even more fucked volume wise than usual,” he answers honestly.  “We’ve already been told we have to all work a 10 today, so earliest I’m getting out of here is 6:30, and that’s with a pretty high escalation in place.  Why?”

“I have no idea what half of that means, babe, but thanks for the details,” his mom brushes off.  “Fizzy got her wig!  She refuses to open the box until you can be here to see it too.”

Louis’ eyes grow and his heart flutters in excitement.  He’d not forgotten about the wig, Fizzy wouldn’t stop talking about it so of course he had been thinking about it, but it had only been two weeks.  He’d thought it would take a bit longer, at least until the beginning of July!  He’s glad it didn’t.

“Shit, okay, uhm...there’s no way I’m getting out of staying today.  Not even for this.  Bosses have been in constant contact with Columbus, Houston, and India and we’re not going to finish everything we need to as it is.  They’d shoot me if I suggested leaving right now,” he thought out loud.  “I swear I will be out of here no later than 6:30 and I will be over as soon as traffic allows.  Okay?”

“Okay, Louis.  Keep focused on work, we want you to keep getting those top production and employee of the month awards, right?”

Louis rolled his eyes.  As if he’d let his production fall.  That was the only thing that was keeping his job in check, considering how often he was late.  “Yes, Mom.  I’ve gotta get back, I didn’t clock out for a break.  Love you,” he says as he began walking back towards his cube.

“Love you too, Boo.”

Luckily Louis doesn’t get caught on a hard check right at deadline and is able to clock out right as it hits 6:30.  He gathers his lunch bag, locks his drawers, and shuts down his computer before rushing to the car.  Traffic is thankfully light and he’s able to make it to his mom’s within twenty minutes.

“I’m here!” he yells as he comes through the door.  There are immediately feet rushing as he sees the youngest set of twins barreling towards him.  He bends down, and when they reach him, he allows himself to topple to the floor as if he just couldn’t keep his balance.

“Oh, wow, you two are so big now, you knocked me right over!” he cries.  Ernie laughs a bit too loudly in his ear while Doris growls and tries to squeeze him in her version of a bear hug.

“We’re in here, Lou!” his mom calls from the family room in the back of the house.  He pulls himself up and chases the littles back to where they had come from to find everyone anxiously inspecting what looks to be a rather boring box.  That box means the world to Fizzy though, and Louis easily reads it in her face.

He looks around and finds everyone staring at him.  “Well?” he questions, sitting down on the ottoman that was randomly sitting near the back door.  “What are you looking at me for?  Open the box already!”

Fizzy immediately takes the scissors and cuts at the tape, gasping as she pulls the flaps up.  She reverently pulls out a mannequin head wearing a gorgeous wig of what is likely shoulder length brown, curly hair.  It looks beautiful and soft and perfect.

Just as Fizzy is about to start crying over this incredible wig that is now hers, Lottie speaks up.  

“Wait, what’s that paper that just fell to the floor?”

Fizzy looks down and sees that a small slip of white paper has fallen on her foot.  She reads it, confused at first, before bursting into tears.  Lottie snatches the paper away as Fizzy crumples into her side, and reads it aloud.

“To the new owner of my hair, I am so happy you are the one who now has it.  I’ve lovingly grown it out and taken the best care of it I could so I could donate it to you.  I’m so glad that you can now benefit from it.  Love, Harry Styles.”

Louis entire face goes slack, he can feel it.  Harry Styles?  International pop star turned famous actor Harry Styles?  What the fuck?  No wonder Fizzy started sobbing, she is almost as in love with Harry as Louis is.  They knew he had donated his hair, but he had refused to say what charity, only that it was for a rare disease that he felt could greatly benefit from his attention.  What are the odds that it would have come to their Fizzy?

“I have to thank him,” Fizzy is saying, almost manically, when Louis finally comes back to his senses and realizes his family is all reacting to this as well.  “How will I thank him?”

A flash of brilliance comes to Louis’ mind and he says, “I know just the way.”

..*..*..*..

“No, we have to plan this right, girls!” Louis insists, trying to get all four of his sisters’ attention back on him from where they’ve degenerated into bickering.  “This is our thank you from all of us to Harry!  We can’t just wing it.”

Lottie rolls her eyes before turning around and looking at Louis again,  “I guess you’re right.  So, are we going to actually hold instruments like we’re the backing band for Fizzy?”

“I get guitar!” Daisy yells, throwing her hand in the air as if she were still at school.

“Oh my God,” Phoebe mutters before saying, “yeah, but I wanna be guitar, too.”

Louis nods and makes notes on his phone.  “We have two wii guitars so we can use those.  Does mom still have my drum set in the basement?”

“Oh my gosh, yes!  I’m so drums.  I’ll be the rockingest drummer ever!” Lottie cries, whipping her bleached hair everywhere and causing the twins to lean in the opposite direction.

Louis rolls his eyes.  “Alrighty.  And Fizzy is obviously Harry, since she has the hair.”  He looks over and finds that Fizzy isn’t even paying attention anymore.  She is focused on twirling her hair and running her fingers through it.  She’s had it for three days now, and Louis already cannot count how many times he has caught her doing this.  It’s both sobering and beautiful, how very much she isn’t taking this for granted.

He clears his throat since it has mysteriously gotten thick watching Fizzy, and asks, “So what song should we do?”

“Stockholm Syndrome!” Lottie yells.

“Oh, yes!  Stockholm Syndrome!  I love playing that one really loud in the car when we have the windows down, we have to do that one!” Fizzy agrees immediately.

Louis is appalled.  “What the...there is no way we are doing Stockholm Syndrome!  Do you even realize what that song is about?  Your twelve year old sisters are going to be a part of this and it is a thank you to him!  Oh my God, what are you thinking?!”

“Oh calm down, Lou.  It’s not that big of a deal.  No one makes that song about BDSM,” Lottie argues.

“Au contraire, EVERYONE makes that song about that!” Louis insists, throwing his hands in the air.  What the hell!  Who doesn’t know that song is a kinky sex song?  Other than his completely innocent 12 year old sisters.  Shit.

“What’s BDSM?” Phoebe asks.

“I’ll tell you later,” Daisy whispers.  “I googled the meaning when the lyrics were first leaked.  There are a lot of theories about whether he’s actually singing about being dominated.”

“Oh my God, we aren’t talking about this anymore!  I remember when all of you were born!  You are not old enough to be discussing this, what the heck?  Okay, next suggestion, please, before I need to bleach my brain to forget this ever happened.”  Louis runs his hands through his hair as he tries to get past this horrible scene.  He can't believe Lottie actually suggested that and Fizzy was ready to go along with it.  He thought they were smart girls, but obviously he had misjudged.

“What about If I Could Fly?” Daisy suggests.  “That’s my favorite.”

“No, I don’t want to cry while recording and that’s what would happen,” Lottie immediately disagrees.

“Hmm...what about…” Phoebe hums while braiding Daisy’s hair absentmindedly.

“Olivia!” Fizzy cries, a look of absolute excitement on her face.  “It’s upbeat, fun, and not about sex!”

“Well, not entirely anyway,” Lottie tacks on.  “He only implies it, what with her sitting on his bed wearing his shirt.”

“Oh my God, I am never going to be able to listen to his music around you girls ever again.  You’ve ruined my favorite artist for me,” Louis whines, burying his head in his hands.

Fizzy pats his shoulder while Daisy retorts, “I thought you just liked him because he’s hot.”

“That too,” Louis and Lottie both say at once before laughing a little.  

“So,” Louis looks around warily.  Did they actually agree on something?  “Is it Olivia, then?”

“All in favor of Olivia, say yea!” Lottie declares.  They all answer in a chorus of “Yea!” and she slaps her hand onto the coffee table.  “Let the voices be heard, Olivia it is!”

“Okay, I’ll have all the equipment borrowed from Liam on Sunday, so we can film it then, I’ll edit it after, and email it to the charity hopefully that night!” Louis cheers.  The girls squeal loudly before hurrying off to do whatever it was they had to do on a Friday night now that school is out.  Louis finishes his notes on his phone so he won’t forget anything and heads home.

..*..*..*..

Those brats really should be grateful Louis knows how to do all this shit.  

Okay, he really shouldn’t be that harsh, but it has been four hours since he started editing everything he filmed to make this “fun” music video he had come up with and while it has turned out perfectly, in his opinion, it is also close to two am and he has to work at eight.  As per usual, Louis can’t leave a project unfinished, though, so he continues with his finishing touches until he can finally watch the video all the way through and he is satisfied with the timing, quality of transitions, and overall perfection of the video.

He really does miss working on films though.  It’s what he went to school for, his degree is actually in Film/Video Production and he had won awards at student film competitions, but he always knew he wouldn’t be able to do it long term.  His true love was documentaries and it is ridiculously hard to get to a point where you can support yourself doing those alone.  He wanted to enjoy his time at school, at least, and get a taste of his dreams, before settling down to help his family out and get whatever job would pay the bills and get him his own place.  

He would do it again in a second, but the day he had to sell his equipment was particularly painful for him.  The only thing that kept him going was Liam, whom he met in a cinematography course their freshman year.  He still does film on the side, but he allows Louis to borrow his equipment when he isn’t using it.  Liam seriously is the best.

Louis’ eyes glaze over a bit as he watches Fizzy, absolutely joyful with her new hair flying, held back in a knock off version of one of Harry’s signature headscarves.  The twins were having a blast mouthing the words as they flail about in the background and Lottie is actually quite a skilled drummer.  The video is adorable and a fantastic representation of his sisters.  Louis is actually incredibly proud of how it turned out, but it isn’t quite finished yet.

He pulls up the short video he had compiled and edited the past few days and adds it at the end of the video.  For the past six or seven years Louis has been compiling footage and interviews with his family and especially Fizzy.  He wants to compile a documentary of sorts about Congenital Atrichia and help get word out about how it really does affect the families and individuals who have to deal with it.  He hopes to one day bring more attention to the disease through the documentary, if he ever is able to finish it.  For now, he thinks it is a great summary of everything Fizzy has been through so Harry can see exactly how much his hair means to her.  

It does seem a bit sudden, though.  The jump right from the fun and lighthearted music video to go with Olivia to the suddenly somber clips and interviews with his family needs something to transition between, an intro of sorts.  

Louis looks down at his outfit and quickly gets up and grabs a clean blue shirt that he’s been told brings out his eyes.  Biting his lip, he sets up the lighting and camera so it’s directed at him while not catching any of the mess that is his apartment.  Hitting record, Louis checks his hair one last time, clears his throat, and gets to it.

..*..*..*..

“Do you feel like your self confidence and self image has changed at all since getting the wig?” Louis asks.  He looks up from his list of questions to see Fizzy’s face scrunching up a little.  Every few months or so he does some interviews with his family members to make sure he isn’t letting the documentary completely die, and he thought now that it had been almost a month since Fizzy had gotten the wig she might have an idea of how it has or hasn’t changed things for her.

“I think,” she says slowly, “that my self confidence hasn’t changed.  I’m still me.  But my self image may have.”

“Do you want to talk about how a little bit?” Louis prompts.

Fizzy purses her lips and looks at him seriously.  Licking her lips she finally says, “Well, before I almost seemed to define the image I had of myself by my lack of hair.  But now, it’s almost like I see myself as a complete person rather than focusing on what I’m lacking.  Does that even make sense?”

“Yeah, I…” The doorbell rings, cutting Louis off mid sentence.  He cranes his neck and looks over his shoulder towards the entryway.  “Are Mom and Dan expecting anyone?”

Fizzy shakes her head as she gets up for the door.  “They wouldn’t have taken the twins out if they were.”  

Louis stands and is about to stop recording when he hears Fizzy say, “Holy shit, it’s really you!”

Curious, he picks up the camera and is attempting to keep it focused in case Fizzy gives him some good footage.  The camera focused on a very familiar torso and tattooed arm causing Louis to freeze and glance up from the screen to see a dimpled smile.

“Uh, yeah.  Hi, I’m Harry.”

Without thinking, Louis answers, “Figured that much out, yeah.  Why are you _here_?”  Wincing, he shakes his head and is about to take it back when he hears Harry laugh.

“Well, I kinda wanted to surprise you, or Fizzy specifically.  So...surprise?”

Louis finally comes to himself and turns the camera towards his sister, who is still standing with her hands covering her mouth trying not to cry.

“Would you like to come inside?” she squeaks.  Harry Styles, pop star extraordinaire, nods his head and steps in with a soft word of thanks.  Louis quickly shifts to the side to allow Harry through their narrow hall and widens his eyes at Fizzy.

 _Where should we take him?_ he mouths at Fizzy in worry.

_I don’t know!_

Louis flaps his free arm before scurrying to reset the living room from their interview setup and something more befitting an international celebrity.  Shit.

“I wasn’t informed that I would get to meet you in addition to already being gifted with your hair,” Fizzy finally says.  “And thank you, so very very much, for that by the way.”  Fizzy sits herself on the couch and motions for Harry to sit down.

“Sorry if I interrupted anything,” Harry apologizes.  Harry Styles is currently sitting on his mom’s couch.  Louis takes in his hair, smoothly quiffed and looking incredible, as well as his casual blue and white stars button up and wonders again how this is real.  

Fizzy thankfully answers Harry while Louis is trying not to choke on his own spit.  “Oh, Louis, that’s his name because I’m so sorry, we didn’t introduce ourselves properly! Oh my God, we are the worst hosts ever!  But Louis, he’s making a documentary about Congenital Atrichia and he does regular interviews with the family for that.  That can be done anytime, though, so it really isn’t a big deal.”

Louis’ face was flaming in embarrassment considering he is now sitting in front of his celebrity crush who has seen some of his work and his sister has no idea.

“I actually got to see some of what he’s done,” Harry admitted to her before turning himself to Louis.  “I was really touched by the video you made, both of you, but it was the clips you added at the end that especially spoke to me.  What all of you have been through is so interesting and it makes me wonder what more I don’t know about the disease.”

Louis slides his eyes over to his sister to find her looking at him in confusion.  

“What clips did you add?” she asks.

“It was just a short compilation of things I’ve gathered over the past several years is all,” he explains.  “I just wanted to show Harry how much it really did mean to us that he chose this charity to donate his hair to and I thought the best way to do that was to share a little bit more about us and you specifically in addition to the music video for Olivia.”  Afraid Fizzy might be upset, Louis continues.  “I’m sorry for not telling you, I never thought we’d hear about it and I just…”  

Louis bites his lip and shrugs.  He never imagined his decision to add a little more to the end would have _this_ as the outcome.

“Sorry if I overstepped, I had no idea you hadn’t told anyone,” Harry apologizes.

“It’s fine.  It was obviously worth it if it ended in our getting to meet you,” Louis says.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Fizzy breathes.  Louis can’t help but smile at the fact that she is nervously braiding a small section of hair on the right of her head as she just stares at Harry.  It’s adorable how quickly she incorporated her new hair into her nervous ticks.

“Would you like anything to drink or eat?” Louis offers, getting up to grab himself a glass of water.  “We’ve got water, Coke, or lemonade if you’d like.”

“Some water would be great, thanks,” Harry accepts before turning to Fizzy.  She shakes her head at Louis when he cocks his brow, and he disappears to the kitchen.  He was just putting some ice in the glass when the garage door crashes open.  

“Hey, Lou!  Didja see the super fancy car out front?  Who d’you think it belongs to?” Phoebe asks as she bounds in with her face painted like Pinky Pie.  Louis thinks it is rather fitting, considering her personality is often the same as the pony’s.

“Lotts says it looks like we have a visitor since it’s parked right in front.  Is someone here?”  Daisy prances in behind her sister, her face painted like Rainbow Dash.  

“We do, actually.  A very special visitor came to see Fizzy,” Louis admits.  “Did Lottie get her face painted too?”  She’s going to die if she did and that’s when she meets Harry Styles.

Daisy nods her head happily.  “Yep!  I wanted her to be Apple Jack, but she insisted on Rarity.”

“Fitting,” Louis laughs.  Right then, Lottie comes in holding the bags of groceries they had gotten.  “Did you really go grocery shopping like that?” he asks.  It seemed so unlike his sister to allow herself in public painted like a character from My Little Pony.

“No way,” she says, shaking her head.  “That’s why I have to bring in the groceries.  I stayed in the car, thank you.”

“But you look so pretty like Rarity!” Phoebe insists.  “The purple matches your eye makeup today perfectly!”

“Hi, Louis.  Hon, did you get everything recorded that you wanted to while we were gone?”

The house has gotten significantly louder with the rest of his family getting home and he can hear the baby twins waking up from their naps upstairs now.  “No, we were interrupted by a surprise guest, actually.”

“Oh.  My.  God.  YOU’RE HARRY STYLES!”

Louis turns around and sees all of his sisters have left the room already and he drops his head.  Still holding the water he had gotten for them, he nods towards the living room.  

“That’s who the fancy car belongs to,” he explains.  “He got our thank you video and came by to visit.”

Jay’s eyebrows raise to nearly her hairline and she looks a bit pale.  “Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me that my house is not an absolute wreck for that man.”

Louis smiles.  “Nah, we were able to straighten up the downstairs once the twins went down for their naps, though I’m afraid they’re definitely awake now.”

She lets out a relieved breath at that and fans herself.  “Okay, I just escaped a minor heart attack.  Can’t have the house looking like a disaster area for the man who gave my daughter his hair.”

“It’s okay, mom.  We haven’t embarrassed you yet,” Louis laughs as he finally exits the kitchen to take Harry his water.  He’s surprised to find Lottie happily chatting despite the face painting and the twins on the floor in front of Harry.  He figured they would all be going crazy, but it appears that Harry has calmed them all and is telling the story of what it was like cutting his hair so short after years of growing it out.

He takes the glass from Louis, offering a soft smile in thanks, and continues his story.  Louis sits in his chair, sipping his water, and observing his sisters.  They all seem in awe but also completely enthralled by the story.  It’s almost like they’re with a cousin they haven’t seen in a long time, hanging on their exciting stories.  Louis looks back at Harry, who also seems in his element, using his hands to gesture to his hair and his facial expressions telling Louis everything he needs to know despite not paying attention to the actual words.  It is beautiful.

Oh, who is he kidding.  Harry is beautiful.  Louis doubts there’s anything he could do that wouldn’t be.

Soon enough, Harry is saying he needs to go but agrees easily when Fizzy asks for some photos.

“If you don’t mind, can you keep these off social media for a bit?” Harry asks.  He seems almost embarrassed, or at least Louis thinks he does as they are getting ready for the first photo, one just with Fizzy and Harry.  “I prefer to do these things without getting a lot of attention, if you know what I mean.”

They all agree quickly and Louis snaps photos of Harry with all the girls separately, then together, before Lottie finally says, “Lou, you aren’t in any of these!  You did that video for us, you have to get one too!”  Louis freezes and just looks up from his camera.  “Oh come on, pass it over.  I’ll take it for you.”

Louis looks over at Harry.  “I mean, if you don’t mind?”

“Course I don’t mind!  C’mon over.”

Louis doesn’t let his eyes leave Harry’s as he hands Lottie his camera and walks towards him.  Harry also doesn't break eye contact, and Louis can't help but wonder what he is thinking as he looks at Louis.  Does he see the supportive older brother he tries so hard to be?  Does he see someone who is nice to meet for a few minutes and then never think of again?

That last thought bothers Louis more than it probably should.  After all, Harry is...Harry.  Louis really is just someone he is meeting to be nice, but during the last little bit Louis had already started imagining Harry being a regular visitor.  Someone who would come and regale Louis’ family with stories, lovingly check up on Fizzy and make sure she’s doing okay, and just all around being there.  Looking into his kind green eyes, Louis can almost convince himself that Harry might want it too.

Louis eventually does have to turn in order to face the camera, the walk to Harry was only around five steps after all, but he really doesn’t want to.  What does surprise him is how Harry immediately wraps his arm around Louis’ shoulder and pulls him into his side.  It really shouldn’t, he was so incredibly accommodating to all of the girls and their wishes for silly and serious photos, etc, but Louis really wasn’t expecting to physically touch.

It is all he can do to not let his eyes bug and keep the smile on his face for the photo.  The way he just fits beneath his arm, the way the tips of Harry’s fingers brush against the skin right below where his t-shirt ends, all of it is making goosebumps pop up and Louis is at a loss.  What is the normal way to react to something like this?  He’s never had this kind of physical reaction to anyone before.

Too soon Lottie indicates the photo has been taken and Louis goes to pull away from Harry, but Harry murmurs a quiet, “Can I speak to you outside before I go?” into his ear.  Confused, Louis turns his head and finds them entirely too close for him to guard his physical reaction so he just nods dumbly.

At that, Harry does pull away and gives hugs to all of Louis’ sisters as well as the youngest twins that have just entered the room; Jay and Dan following now that diapers had been changed and the kids are ready to see their guest.  One last quick round of photos with the new additions, and Louis is walking Harry to his car.

“I’m surprised to not see a bodyguard out here waiting for you or something,” he jokes.  Harry chuckles a little before answering.

“Well, I decided to take my chances with you guys and it turned out alright, didn’t it?”  Louis could see his favorite dimple emerge as Harry smiles and knowing he is the reason for it is incredible.  

“So,” Louis tries to lead into whatever is the reason Harry wants to talk to him.

“So,” Harry mocks, even trying to recreate Louis’ midwestern accent.  “I’ve done my research on you, Louis Tomlinson, and I think you might be able to help me and vice versa.”

Louis’ brows knit together.  “Research?  What exactly did you find?”

“I learned that you won the top honors at the IDFA Student Documentary Competition as well as being nominated for the IDA Documentary Awards two years in a row, winning once.  That’s some impressive shit there.”

Louis is flabbergasted.  “Why...uhm, yeah,” is all he can get out, running his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck.  How is he supposed to react to this?  It isn’t often anyone cared about what he had been able to do while in school.  “And you know what those awards are?  How would this be able to help you?  Are you wanting a doco made about you or something?”

Harry snorts.  “Hardly.  I have enough cameras in my face regularly and now I'm finishing filming a movie so I’d actually rather avoiding additional cameras if possible.  No, rather I have been hoping to bring more attention to Congenital Atrichia.  It’s one of the reasons I decided to donate my hair to the charity I did.  I don’t mind people learning where I donated it, but I would rather  they be educated on what the disease is and all the challenges families with children who have it deal with as they learn what I did, you know?”

Louis nods.  “Yeah, but I’m still confused how I fit in with this.”

“Well, I’m working with some others to fund a documentary but we are extremely crunched for time and I’ve hated every possible director and their supposed vision for the project that I’ve met with until I saw your video.”

“You…”  Louis pauses to clear his throat and squint his eyes, fighting against the sunshine as his brain swims with this information.  “I’m sorry, but it sounds like you’re implying you want me to do this project for you.”

Harry shrugs.  “Yeah.  I kinda do.”  He scrunches his nose before looking down and scuffing his foot on the concrete of the driveway.  “Think you might be interested?”

“Shit,” Louis breaths out.  “I mean, I can’t say I’m opposed?  But I don’t even have my own equipment anymore.  What you saw in there is what I’m borrowing from a friend of mine.”

“No, that’s fine,” Harry assures him, holding his hands out as if he could keep Louis’ interest simply by grabbing the air that surrounds his body.  “We would provide the needed equipment as well as any assistants you might need.  This is if you meet Irving and the rest and they approve of what you pitch, that is.”

Louis purses his lips and nods thoughtfully.  “Yeah, okay.  Can you send me some more details on when and where I would need to meet with them?  I can at least pitch an idea and see where it goes from there, I suppose.  What kind of deadline are you wanting for this?”

“Well the Sundance submissions prefer them to be in before August 29th, so ultimately that’s what we are going for.”

At that, Louis’ eyes grow to what he is sure is an unnatural size.  “Sundance?  You want me to potentially make a documentary about Congenital Atrichia that would be possibly screened at Sundance?”

Harry gives a small smile.  “We’ll submit it to others, since obviously Sundance might not select it, but that is what we are hoping for.”

Louis is completely still as he tries to absorb the information before finally saying,  “Yeah, okay, you know what?  I really need you to send me more details on this because I’m fairly certain I’m not going to retain much information past this right now.”  He feels somewhat overwhelmed.  How is this even happening?  Is this for real?

“That’s no problem.  Do you mind giving me your contact information?”  Harry holds his phone out and Louis creates a contact for himself including his cell phone number and e-mail.

“I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” he chuckles.  

Harry offers another smile as he pulls out his car keys from his, frankly, far too tight jeans.  “I can.  When I watched the video you made as well as the interview portion at the end I was floored because it was exactly what I had been wanting and looking for.  Someone who knew how important it was that these stories get told but also someone who won’t overdramatize it.  You know what I mean?”  Harry unlocks his door and pulls it open before saying, “I just really feel like you would be able to give it heart that it would be lacking otherwise.  I’ve gotta go, but I’ll text you soon, Louis.”

Louis nods one last time and waves before watching Harry drive off.  What the hell is this day?

..*..*..*..

_Harry B Stylin’: Are flamingos too loud for an interview about an upcoming performance benefiting children’s charities?_

_Pretty Louis: Dude.  Have you ever seen flamingos at the zoo?  They’re definitely too loud for any interview.  Why would you want to interview flamingos anyway?  :p_

_Harry B Stylin’: I meant a flamingo print on my shirt._

_Pretty Louis: *blinks*  Are you wearing a hawaiian shirt to a formal interview, Harold?_

_Harry B Stylin’: Oh my God why did I bother asking you about this again?_

_Pretty Louis: I honestly have no idea, but I’m having quite a bit of fun with it._

_Harry B Stylin’: I’m sure.  Thanks for being negative amounts of help._

_Pretty Louis: You are so incredibly welcome._

_Pretty Louis: Wear something blue.  It makes your eyes almost glow._

_Pretty Louis: Also, please ignore that this conversation ever happened during the interview for the doco tomorrow._

_Harry B Stylin’: Blue?  I think I can work blue.  Thanks, Louis!_

_Harry B Stylin’: And there’s no way I’m forgetting this convo happened.  You just told me my eyes glow when I wear blue.  How might you know that, hmm?_

_Pretty Louis: Shit._

..*..*..*..

Louis shuffles his note cards he wrote out in case he gets too nervous to remember the answer to an important question for probably the tenth time to make sure they’re all in order.  He has them all color coded and organized by topic so he’ll easily be able to find them should that time come.

He leans back in his rickety kitchen chair, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath in, deep breath out.  He can do this.  He will do this.  He wants so badly to impress whoever is going to be on the other end of this Skype interview of sorts because this is basically his dream coming to fruition.

His computer chimes and Louis jumps.  It’s been just less than a week since Louis met Harry and despite their fairly frequent texting and Harry’s regular assurances that Louis basically has this, Louis’ heart's still racing and it feels like it might completely leave his chest.  

He straightens up in his seat, tries to put on an air of confidence, and then accepts the call.

“Louis, can you see me?” Harry’s voice comes through the speakers a bit garbled as the connection is finally made.

“Uhm, not yet, it’s still that rotating circle that Skype is so fond of,” Louis smirks.  “Can you see me?”

“Yeah, you’re clear on our side.”

Louis fixes his fringe nervously and lets his eyes go a bit wide.  “Well, that’s a bit nerve wracking.  You’re all able to see and judge me and all i’ve got is a gray ticker.”

He hears laughter on the other side.  That’s good.  Laughing is good.

“It’s still not connecting?  Well, do you mind starting and hoping it connects at some point?  At least we can see your lovely face,” Harry says.

Louis can feel the blush rising on his cheeks as he tries to keep his facial expression calm since they can see him.  Shit.  Harry just said he had a lovely face.  

“Yeah, that’s fine.  It’s probably my internet, it gets pretty bad since everyone around here jumps on around this time of night,” Louis explains.  “It’ll catch up eventually.”

“Sounds good,” a new voice comes in.  One Louis thinks he is familiar with.  “This is Irving Azoff speaking, how are you, Louis?”

Louis chokes on air or spit or something when he realizes he’s talking to THE Irving Azoff.  He coughs a bit in his hand before he is finally able to breathe again and says, “I, uh, I’m doing great, sir.  Thank you.  It’s very nice to meet you.”

Hearing a chuckle in the background Harry interrupts and says, “Why are you reacting like that?  I told you ahead of time that he’d be the main producer on this.”

“No, Harold, you actually didn’t,” Louis clarifies.  Right then a visual comes through for Louis and he can see Harry smiling brightly at him with Irving Azoff sitting beside him and his son Jeff on the other side of the table from them as well.  “You said Irving would have to okay my pitch, but you never actually said Irving’s last name.  I had no idea I would be working with one of the top men in the film industry should I actually survive this Skype call!”

“There he is,” Harry says with a smirk.  “Feeling better now, Mr. Sass Pants?”

“No,” Louis pouts and crosses his arms in a huff over his chest.  “But can we please get going on this before I forget everything I had prepped to impress you three?”

At that Jeff bursts out laughing and Irving smirks.  “I like him already,” he says to Harry, not quite quiet enough for the mic to miss it.  “Okay, Feisty Lou, I want to hear your plans for this documentary.”

“It’s nothing too complicated, I just want it to be a mixture of family interviews interspersed with home videos and memories of how the disease affected these kids.  I want to show people at all ages and from various backgrounds and talk about how all of them have handled growing up with congenital atrichia.  I want those who watch this to know that sure, there are worse things, but a person can still be deeply changed and socially stunted if they don’t have a strong support system thanks to the illness.  That some might think it’s just hair, but there are other complications that are common with those who have the disease.  Like did you know that the sweat glands can be affected due to the lack of hair?  Felicite was lucky and she didn’t have that to deal with, but a lot of kids do.  It means their body doesn’t manifest viruses the same way others do and it can be much more serious, it means they have a hard time doing sports, and other things that most of us take for granted because it’s just what our body does but theirs don’t.  I want to bring this disease, that most people don’t even know exists, to the attention of those we can get this to and show them that these people who are dealing with it are not only people past their disease, but they are amazing.”

Louis takes a deep breath and purses his lips before continuing.  “I was hoping, if I get this opportunity, I could use about five different families from across the country.  Hopefully the people with the disease would all be from different demographics and ethnicities and ages.  I would try to spend an equal amount of time on each, but their stories would all be interspersed with each other.  Have them all move in a bit of a parallel until the very end where it shows where they are now and then maybe end with the contact information of a few of the different charities around for congenital atrichia so they can contact them for further information on how they can help.”  

He shrugs, feeling incredibly nervous now that his plan is laid out and Irving is just squinting at him with an unimpressed look on his face.  “And that’s it basically.  Any questions?”

“Why?”  Jeff asks.

Louis blinks and furrows his brow.  “I’m sorry, why what?”

“Why make this documentary?  Why should people care?”

“I can’t say why people should care.  That’s a very personal thing for everyone.  Why I personally think they should care is very closely tied to why I have been working on this already since before I even attended college.  I have been filming my sister and our family ever since she was a baby because I had just gotten my first camcorder.  I documented her losing her hair and the confusion and worry that came with it until we figured out what was going on.  You can see our living circumstances change as the medical expenses began to take over how we lived to the point where we had to move to a two bedroom apartment for a family of five where we didn’t even have a kitchen table and chairs to eat at because we’d had to sell pretty much everything we had.  I don’t know how they continued to be able to supply me with the tapes and eventually the digital camera I used for this, I would imagine that mostly came down to my grandparents, but it was a hard time there for a long time.  And we are lucky.  We came out of it okay and our family still loves and cares for each other.  Others aren’t that lucky.

“Meanwhile, Fizzy still had to go without a wig and learn how to deal with the bullying from kids at school who didn’t understand and pity from strangers who assumed she had cancer as she tried to explain that wasn’t it at all and then they were simply confused.  She came out of this with grace and a maturity that I don’t know a single other kid her age to have.  She takes nothing for granted and when she learned the wig she was gifted was from THE Harry Styles, she finally felt special and not just different.  This documentary, I hope anyway, can help others tell their stories so they know they are special as well.”

“Damn.”  Louis’ eyes moved from Jeff over to Irving.  “When can you start?”

Louis’ jaw drops at that and he looks at Harry to see if this is for real.  Harry is looking at Irving and Jeff with a smirk on his face.  Why is he being so unhelpful right now?

“Are you serious?”

“Louis,” Irving says before leaning forward in his seat, putting his elbows on his knees.  “You are the first person we have talked to about this who has any passion towards this.  Who knows anything about the disease.  You just outlined a documentary that, while it would have to be done in a specific way to not come off as boring or melodramatic, has a lot of potential and could be very compelling.  I’ve seen some of your work from when you were in school and Harry showed me the video you made as a thank you for him.  So yes, I am absolutely fucking serious when I ask you again, when can you start?”

Louis just sits there and blinks at the screen.  He should probably give his two weeks’ notice at work, but who the hell cares at this point? Certainly not Louis.  

“Tomorrow too soon?”

Harry covers his mouth to hold back a laugh before Irving finally says, “Maybe.  But let us talk some more and we’ll be in touch, Louis.  It was very nice meeting you tonight.  Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.”

“Of course.  Thank you as well!  Have a great rest of your night.”

“Night, Lou,” Harry says before the video feed goes blank and Skype asks him to rate the call.  Fucking hell.  Louis is going to be working with Irving Azoff and Harry Styles to make his first actual documentary in years.

Louis goes to sleep that night and has dreams ranging from winning awards and failing miserably, but can’t remember any of it by the time he wakes in the morning to a text from Harry.

 _Harry B Stylin’: So when can you talk details?  Irv wants to get started next week assuming contracts are able to be signed by then_.

And so it begins.  It doesn’t sink in until later when he is climbing into his car to head to his mom’s that Harry called him Lou.  He was definitely okay with that.

..*..*..*..

_Pretty Louis: Is there a limit as to how many suitcases I’m allowed to bring with me?_

_Harry B Stylin’: ...no...but now I’m curious how many you’re packing that has you asking this question._

_Pretty Louis: I’m...not sure I’m willing to say honestly._

_Harry B Stylin’: Louis._

_Pretty Louis: Harold._

_Harry B Stylin’: Just tell me, or I’m going to start sending voice messages of me singing the theme song to Dora the Explorer and Peppa Pig on repeat until you do._

_Pretty Louis: How do you even know those songs?  You don’t have younger siblings like I do.  Do you have kids?_

_Harry B Stylin’: Snort.  No.  But I babysit for my friends a fair amount.  I can also do Sofia the First, but I find the other songs more annoying.  Ooh!  I could also perform the Olivia theme song…_

_*Harry B Stylin’ is recording a voice message*_

_Pretty Louis: Fuck NO OKAY!  Geez.  I’m considering two suitcases of clothes and another with notes and equipment and such._

_Harry B Stylin’: What you gon’ do with all that junk?_

_Harry B Stylin’: All that junk inside your trunk?_

_Pretty Louis: Harry._

_Harry B Stylin’: Imma get get get get you drunk, get you love drunk off my hump._

_Pretty Louis: Oh God.  That is going to be stuck in my head for weeks now, and I am completely blaming you._

_Harry B Stylin’: My hump.  My hump my hump my hump.  My lovely lady lumps!_

_Pretty Louis: So are you saying that’s far too much shit or are you just singing an ode to my ass?_

_Harry B Stylin’: Well...while your ass is worthy of love ballads that wasn’t my intention at this point in time._

_Pretty Louis: You could have just said “that’s too much shit, Tomlinson.”_

_Harry B Stylin’: That’s not nearly as much fun._

_Harry B Stylin’: Maybe the next ballad I write will be dedicated to your ass._

_Pretty Louis: Fuck off._

_Pretty Louis: And thank you.  My ass really is worthy of ballads, HA!_

_Harry B Stylin’: Course, Lou._

..*..*..*..

“When will you be back, Mortimer?” Fizzy asks as Louis goes through his luggage one last time to make sure he has everything.  

Huffing a sigh, Louis zips up his cases and looks at his sister over his shoulder.  Today Lottie has braided her wig so it has little tied off ends hanging right above her shoulders.  It’s adorable, if Louis does say so.  

“Why is it that you decided to call me Mortimer again?”

Fizzy shrugs and says, “You look like a Mortimer to me, so I decided that’s what I’m going to call you.  And that doesn’t answer my question.  When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know, Philomena,” he retorts before pulling his cases off the bed and arranging them around himself in preparation for leaving.  “We’re going to Vermont for a while and then Miami after that.  I’m hoping to be able to come home then, but I’m not sure if there will be time before we head out to Seattle and that town I can never remember the name of in New Mexico.”

Fizzy pouts before leaving his room and heading to the door.  The truth is, he doesn’t know how long it is going to take with the families to get what he’s looking for and needing in order for this documentary to be everything he’s envisioning.  He imagines that the interviews themselves could take a day or two at most for each of them, but the longest part will be digging through their family videos to augment their stories and give more background.  

They are currently scheduled to spend four days in each place with a day in between for travel.  Louis has already spoken to the families himself and talked to them about his expectations and everything involved, but today is the first day he’ll actually be meeting his assistant and the rest of the crew.  It will be a rather small group of them, his assistant will be someone named Jon and there will be two technical assistants, Sandy and Dan.  There will also be a mediator there from the charity that Harry works closely with to make sure that everything is done to the families’ agreement, and his name will be Niall.  

Louis just really hopes that they’ll all get along so the project will be as seamless as possible.  Louis is used to working completely by himself, so getting used to instructing others or having to explain his ideas or concepts will be interesting.

“But you will be coming back to do the official interviews with the family and everything, right?”

Louis realizes he’s just staring at his door while deep in thought.  He has to pull himself together or this is never going to work.

“Course I am!  You don’t think I’d let everyone else get shot on the fancy reel and then rely on what I got of you with Liam’s shit camera, do you?”  He ruffles her hair a bit and she squirms before smacking his arm quite hard.

“Stop!  It took ages for Lottie to do it in a way that didn’t show it was a wig!  If you mess it up she’ll kill you!”  When she’s finally decided that her hair still looks okay, she continues.  “And you know Liam’s camera isn’t shit.  But I wanna feel special like all of them will and get to meet the guys you’re traveling with too.”

Louis smiles softly at her.  “You _are_ incredibly special, Fizz.  Don’t ever forget it.”

“I thought my name was Philomena.”

Louis cackles joyfully before letting her out so he could drag all his luggage behind him.  “That it is, dear sister.”

Two flights and an hour and a half of driving through the mountains finds Louis in quite possibly the smallest town he’s ever been to.  Putney Vermont apparently has a smaller population than his high school had, but damn if it isn’t gorgeous.  He settles in at the small bed and breakfast that was booked for him and the rest of the crew and waits for them to arrive.  They all have a later flight which gives Louis some time to relax.  

Only being here for a few days means Louis doesn’t feel the need to unpack or get settled really, so he just flops onto his bed after grabbing his phone charger.  Once his phone is plugged in and he’s no longer worried about it shutting off on him mid-text, he lets his family know that he has officially arrived safely.  He pulls up the information regarding the family they’ll be talking to as well to be sure he’s ready with his questions.  He isn’t able to focus for long before he realizes the song he’s been humming all day was “My Humps”.  

_Pretty Louis: You know what?  Fuck you.  Days later and I still have that shitty song in my head._

Louis lowers his head to the bed and takes a deep breath while trying to come up with a different song.  There has to be something that can dislodge this from where it is playing on a loop.  He pulls himself up to sitting and grabs his laptop.  Once it’s booted up, he quickly clicks on itunes and scrolls to what he’s looking for.  He clicks on the song he knows will get rid of the one currently driving him mad and almost immediately starts singing along.

“But little does know that his daughters, Peggy, Angelica, Eliza sneak into the city just to watch all the guys at work, work!”  Louis starts dancing a bit on the bed as he lets the Hamilton soundtrack take over.  This is so much more pleasant than that stupid song Harry had quoted the other day.

Soon, his phone chimes.  Figuring it is his family, he immediately unlocks it and finds a message from Harry instead.

_Harry B Stylin’: Haha!  You’re welcome.  So does this mean you got to Vermont safely?_

Louis takes a quick video of him singing along to his favorite part, Burr’s rap with Angelica, before accompanying the snippet with a message.

_Pretty Louis: Yeah, I’m here just waiting on everyone else to join me so we can figure out our schedule for our time here._

Louis decides maybe he can at least put in his contacts and get washed up so he doesn’t feel so grody when the other guys get here.  He’s digging around in his bags, singing along probably a bit too loud to Angelica’s wedding speech when there’s a knock on the door right before it swings open.  He stands up too fast, getting a bit dizzy, and turns to the door.  Standing before him with an amused smile and fluffy brown hair is someone who looks like he belongs permanently on a golf course.  

“Hey, bro!  I’m Niall.  Nice song choice, and you don’t sound so bad yourself!”

Louis blushes and rubs the back of his neck.  “Yeah, uh, just needed to get another song out of my head and Hamilton is kinda my go to so…”

Louis’ phone chimes several times in succession and Louis bites his lip, trying to keep from checking it while he has the mediator from the charity in the room with him.

“Well I'm more of a Guns and Ships kind of guy myself, but I can definitely see the appeal of Satisfied,” Niall comments before walking in further and sitting on the bed. “So did you come in with the other technical dudes?”

Louis snorts. “Is that their official title?”

Niall just shrugs and smiles. “Dunno. I'm mostly here as a go between for the families and you. I'm not familiar with the fancy shit you're all putting together.”

“Right,” Louis chuckles. He finds himself a fan of Niall already, even if he did burst right into his room and make himself at home like he was one of Louis’ younger sisters. “Nah, they're supposed to get here in a few hours. I thought you were too, actually?”

“Yeah,” Niall nods. “The plans changed because the family got a bit nervous and wanted to go over some concerns before you got here, so I came in yesterday.”

Louis stops messing with his bag and sits down on the floor.

“What kinds of concerns? Are they still willing to do this?”

Niall slowly nods as if he is trying to form his words so Louis fully understands what he's saying. “Bart has had to deal with some rough shit, like most people do who have congenital atrichia, but I think the doctors he saw growing up weren't very informed and the small town living didn't really help much. He's soon going to be a grandfather, but he still worries how people perceive him and doesn't want to be met with pity.”

“That makes sense, but how much of my background were they given? I just assumed they would know as much about me as I know about them. Would it make Bart feel better if I met with them today before we all descend on them tomorrow?” Louis bites his lip. He can't imagine letting someone into his home to talk about such personal things without having a good amount of information about them ahead of time. His phone beeps a few more times and Louis keeps ignoring it.

“Dude. You don't have to ignore that. It seems like someone really wants to talk,” Niall teases. Seeing Louis bite his lip he holds his hands up and says, “Or not. I can tell whoever it is is special. Anyway, yeah. I was hoping you'd be willing to do that. Bart suggested dinner with the family at 7. Would that work?”

Louis finally picks his phone back up and sees all the messages are from Harry. He can feel his cheeks flushing before seeing it's already 6.

“Shit, I should get ready then! Yeah, that's fine.”

“Have fun sexting Harry and I'll see you in about forty-five!” Niall calls before leaving the room as abruptly as he entered it.

Louis just sits there and stares at the door.  What the hell was that?

..*..*..*..

_Harry B Stylin’: Louis._

_Harry B Stylin’: Lewis._

_Harry B Stylin’: You didn’t tell me you could sing._

_Harry B Stylin’: Like I know that was a rap, but you had that._

_Harry B Stylin’:  WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING ME YOU DROP THAT BOMB OF YOU WEARING ADORABLE GLASSES I DIDN’T KNOW YOU EVEN HAD RAPPING HAMILTON AND THEN GO GHOST ON ME?!_

_Harry B Stylin’: Okay, you know what?  Fuck you too.  Shit, my heart is racing right now.  Look what you did._

_Pretty Louis: Sorry!  Niall barged into my room right after I sent that!_

_Pretty Louis: You think my glasses are adorable?_

_Harry B Stylin’: If i was being completely honest, pretty much everything you do is gorgeous._

_Pretty Louis: You sure do know how to charm a boy, Styles._

_Harry B Stylin’: As long as I know how to charm you._

_Pretty Louis: Don’t go too heavy, I’d rather not vomit right before meeting the first person I’m interviewing._

..*..*..*..

Niall and Louis walk through the dusky light as fireflies begin to come out.  The dinner with Bart had gone perfectly and his fears were eased significantly.  Louis is now brewing a plan of writing a little introduction about himself so the other families will feel at ease before they get there as a way of opening communication so they can ask questions of him if they’d like when Niall breaks the silence.

“Seriously, though.  I’ve kept quiet long enough.  So, you and Harry?”

Louis lets out a soft snort.  “Definitely not to the point of sexting, if that’s what you’re wondering.  What even made you say that?”

Niall looks at Louis with a bright grin and his blue eyes twinkling.  “I’ve known Harry for longer than most seeing as we were sat next to each other in 8th grade English.  I’m the reason he knows congenital atrichia exists and why he chose my charity to donate his hair to.”

Louis looks at Niall in surprise.  It makes sense, really.  How else might he have heard about it?

“So when I say that he hasn’t shut up about you since you sent him that music video your family made, I have some experience in this matter, and he hasn’t shut up about you since then.  I didn’t realize you two chatted regularly though until I saw he was blowing up your phone.”

Louis is honestly stunned and unsure of what to say, so he looks back to the ground and kicks a pebble into the street.  

“He talks to you about me?”

Niall lets out what Louis has already learned is his signature cackle.  It’s quite contagious, really.  Anyone around him when he breaks into laughter can’t help but smile and let out a chuckle in response and Louis isn’t immune.

“Harry seems to think you’re the answer to all of his dreams and prayers, so yeah.  He talks about you.”

Louis blushes and chances a look up to the sky, which is now a deep violet bleeding into a navy blue.  Louis doesn’t remember the last time he actually took a walk and enjoyed a sunset.  He needs to make sure he takes the time for this kind of thing more often.

“Oh come on, Louis.  Give me something to go off of here.”

Louis looks up at Niall with wide eyes.  “What exactly are you wanting me to say?  I barely know either of you, and you want me to go into depths regarding my feelings?”

“I’m not really a feelings kinda guy.  I guess I just wanna know if the interest in boning is mutual between you two.”

“Shit, you really have a way with words,” Louis chuckles.  He can feel his entire face burning as he finally lets out, “Yeah, I guess you could say it’s mutual.  I mean, you’ve seen Harry.  He’s pretty enough to make straight guys question themselves, but it’s so much more than that too.  Like, when he came to my family’s house to meet Fizzy, he was so completely absorbed in his conversation he was having with the girls.  He was willing to tell stories and open up to us in a way I never imagined could happen in a short visit.  He’s just...there are good people, right?”  Louis looks to Niall for confirmation.  He is wearing a smirk, but gives a solemn nod in response.  “But Harry isn’t just good.  It’s like he’s made of kindness.  He seems to emanate it.”

Louis makes himself be quiet at this point because he’s already rambled far longer than he meant to, but Niall nudges him in the shoulder.  “And?”

“You know me too well already and it’s been one night, man.  That’s just creepy.”  Louis smiles at Niall who wraps his arm around Louis’ shoulder.

“I know.  I have a gift for reading people.  Anyway, tell me what else.”

“Fuck,” Louis whispers.  “And...have you seen the way his haircut almost makes his jawline stand out even more?  Like, how is that even possible?”

Niall squeezes him even closer.  “I don’t know, bro.  I’m mostly straight myself, but I can’t say I’m not jealous of his physique at least half the time and I’m a secure dude.”

Louis nods in understanding.  “Are you sure he’s human and not some alien pretending to be?”

Niall lets out a cackle again, but can’t seem to stop himself at this point.  “Oh my God, I love you.  Can I keep you around always?”  He keeps laughing and pauses on the sidewalk to get his breathing back under control.  “Alien, fuck.  That would make a lot of sense, actually.  Explain a lot of things about the guy that just don’t add up otherwise.  I’ll have to confront him about it later.”  He keeps chuckling but finally starts walking again and they’re now in front of the Bed and Breakfast.

“Glad I could entertain you.”

“Oh, my friend, I’m sure you’ll be more than entertaining these next few weeks and I cannot wait.”

..*..*..*..

_Pretty Louis: I’ve officially changed my contact name for you._

_Alien Harry: Wait, what was it before and what is it now?_

_Pretty Louis: Before it was the pun on your name you entered your contact as.  I just kept that cause it was cute, but now you’re your true identity._

_Alien Harry: I feel like puns are my true identity…_

_Pretty Louis: That’s true, actually.  Maybe i’ll change it back someday, but for now it’s staying as is._

_Alien Harry: Which is what?  You never told me, you know._

_Pretty Louis: I’ve discovered you’re an alien so that’s now your name.  Alien Harry._

_Alien Harry: Okay, what is with you and Niall saying I’m an alien?  Where did this come from and why?_

_Alien Harry: Louis?_

_Alien Harry: I hate when you just leave the conversation hanging until the next morning._

_Alien Harry: Fine, you twat.  Sleep well.  Don’t make me transport to Vermont and beat your human ass and let me know you’re going to sleep next time, okay?_

_Pretty Louis: I knew you’d admit to being an alien sooner or later, I just didn’t think it’d be that easy.  Night, Harry._

_Alien Harry: Sigh.  I knew I was falling for a trap._

_Alien Harry: Night, Lou.  xx_

..*..*..*..

The next morning Louis and Niall meet Dan, Jon, and Sandy.  They’re all great guys who are well versed in filming so Louis is able to easily delve into details regarding the style he is pretty set on.  They were shown some of the footage that Louis had done himself earlier that he is hoping to replicate with the nicer equipment before even getting there, so it isn’t difficult to make sure they are all on the same page.

The detailed planning of what they will be doing, along with making sure they all understood Louis’ vision for the project, makes Louis feel like a massive weight is lifted off his shoulders.

The filming that day went perfectly too.  Louis walks back to his room already excited to watch back what they got.  If it’s how he thinks it is, then the formal interview portion is done already and the next day will be spent with Bart showing them around his old schoolyard and other places that were significant to him growing up.  Bart doesn’t have much in way of home movies from when he was younger, but he does have a good amount of pictures, so Louis and the others will be sorting through the ones Bart and his family are willing to share for the documentary on the third and fourth full days in Putney.

Louis is settling in with a sandwich he grabbed from the kitchen downstairs with his laptop ready to go when his phone pings for the first time all day.

_Neil: Hey, this is going to seem kinda strange, but can you call Harry?_

Louis glances at the paused screen on his laptop before looking back at his phone.

_Tommo: I mean, yeah...do you mean right now?  And is there any particular reason why?_

The dots indicating Niall is responding already pop up before disappearing again, then appear and disappear again.  This happens a few times before finally a message comes through.

_Neil: Today’s been bad for him already and he has a big press junket tonight.  I think a call from you could make a difference for him._

Louis sits in silence and stares at his phone, waiting to see if Niall is going to send anything else, because what the hell?  Niall has known the man since they were in 8th grade.  Louis met him like a month ago.  What makes him think Louis would be able to cheer him up?

_Tommo: Okay...I’m still confused why you want me to do this.  You know him better than I do._

Niall responds much faster this time.

_Neil: Yeah, but I don’t think that’s what he needs right now._

“Whatever that means,” Louis mumbles to himself before flicking over to contacts.  He’s never called Harry before, but he figures now might as well be as good a time as ever.  His thumb hovers over Harry’s name before he finally just touches it and holds the phone up to his ear.  He gets up off the bed and begins pacing the small room.

What is he going to say?  Why did he do this without coming up with a reason for calling?  Shit, this is going to be so bad, Louis is so awkward on the phone…

His thoughts are brought up short when Harry picks up and Louis can immediately tell that Niall downplayed the situation purely based off the way Harry’s voice cracks saying his name.  

“Louis?”  Louis can hear the confusion Harry has imbued his name with, and honestly he isn’t sure he has the answers.

“Hey Harry, everything okay?”

Harry clears his throat like he’s trying to make his it a bit less thick as if he’s been crying.  “Yeah, everything’s fine.  What’s up?  Everything go okay with the filming today?”

Louis rolls his eyes.  Harry is obviously deflecting.

“Yeah, everything’s great here, but I’m not sure you’d be able to say the same.  It doesn’t sound like things are fine.  What’s up, babe?”  The pet name slips out before Louis can even realize he’s done it.  It just comes so naturally to him after years of soothing his sisters, he doesn’t even question using it with Harry now.

“It’s nothing, really.  I’m just being overly emotional is all,” Harry sniffles.

Sighing into the phone, Louis finally just comes clean.  “Listen, I called because Niall said you’d had a bad day.  I just didn’t realize it had been this bad, you know?  So go ahead, tell me all about it.”  Louis settles himself back onto the bed, closes his laptop and sets it on the floor, then makes himself comfortable so he’s able to focus on Harry entirely. His sandwich will still be there after the call as well.

“He asked you to call me?”  Louis doesn't think Harry sounds angry or upset about that, more just surprised, but he decides to be cautious in his response anyway.

“I...didn’t say that, but yes he did.  He hoped I could cheer you up.”

The silence on the line was deafening.  Shit, if Louis read this wrong, he is going to feel like a twat.

“That’s really sweet of him.  And you, for being willing to do that,” Harry whispers.

“Of course, Haz,” Louis whispers back.  “You wanna tell me all about your shit day so I can then focus on cheering you up so your press conference thing tonight doesn’t suck?”

A wet chuckle sounds in his ear and Louis can’t help but close his eyes and curl up on his side.  Harry’s voice, even after crying and coming through the phone, is so warm and rich, Louis is taken back to the day they met and the way his entire body seemed to realign itself so it was better able to focus and react to Harry.  

“You’re truly incredible, you know that, right?” Harry murmurs.

“I’m nothing compared to you,” Louis softly answers.

“Don’t you ever say that,” Harry’s voice sounds firm despite the soft tone.  “You’re more amazing than you give yourself credit for.  Even Niall knows that.”

Louis squeezes his eyes shut even tighter than before.  The voice in his ear and the amazing words that Harry is sharing are giving Louis shivers at the same time as warmth blooms inside of him.  It’s a strange dichotomy that he’s never experienced before.

“This isn’t supposed to be about me, Styles,” Louis desperately tries to get the call back to where it was meant to be.  “You have been having a horrible no good absolutely rotten day, and I’ve been given the honorable task of helping you feel better.  So, tell me why it’s been such a bad day.”

Harry takes a deep breath and then lets it all out.  He goes on a twenty minute rant about how he feels like he’s never good enough and how his various agents are all demanding different things from him because, “You’re branching into acting now, Harry, and that’s entirely different from what you’re used to!” but he still has commitments with his music career and then there have been comments from people in the industry whom Harry shouldn’t worry about but they’ve all been expressing doubts regarding his actual talent and whether he was up for such a heavy role and after everything else Harry is just doubting himself now and all of this comes before a press junket announcing his new album and tour for next year and it’s all just a lot.

“Well, shit,” Louis breathes once Harry has finally stopped talking.

“I say all of that, and that’s all you’ve got to say?”

Louis scoffs.  “Excuse me, Harold, but that’s a lot you just said and I’m currently processing!  I need to figure out what should be addressed first and proceed accordingly!”

Harry chuckles, and Louis is happy to note that it sounds truly amused.  “Of course, I’m so sorry.  Please feel free to process and respond as you feel appropriate.”

“Harold, are you mocking me?” Louis teases and he can hear the giggles Harry can’t suppress coming down the line.  “You are!  How very dare you!  I’m here trying to help you feel better and you’re mocking me!”

Harry's giggles are now full blown laughter and Louis feels the warmth he felt earlier turn into a glow. He smiles to himself softly, before speaking into the phone again.

“Ultimately, what I think you need to focus on is are you doing what you love?”

With no hesitation Harry answers, “Yes.”

Louis nods to himself. “And are you doing the best that you are able?”

With only a slight hitch in his breath, Harry again responds, “Yes,” before tacking on a soft, “I'm giving everything I can to these projects.”

“Then what else really matters?” Louis kindly questions. When Harry stays silent, he continues.  “If you are putting your entire self into acting and singing like I know you are and you're loving it then honestly fuck everyone else who is negative. You don't need them. There are so many of us rooting for you and supporting you and I know you'll be incredible at whatever you do.”

A quiet sniffle comes through the line before Harry's voice wobbles out a, “Thanks, Lou.”

“Sure, Haz.”

They sit on the phone in a comfortable silence just listening to each other breathe until it's time for Harry to go. As soon as they hang up, Louis’ room feels too quiet and too empty.

He decides to get back to work rather than considering why that might be.

..*..*..*..

_Amazing Louis: So how did the press thing go?_

_Alien Harry: It turned out better than I expected, actually_

_Alien Harry: Though that might have been because of the dubsmash that Ni sent right before I went on_

_Amazing Louis: Fuck_

_Amazing Louis: Which one did he send?_

_Alien Harry: WAIT THERE’S MORE THAN ONE?_

_Amazing Louis: Uhhh…_

_Amazing Louis: Of course not.  Just the one._

_Alien Harry: YOU LIE NIALL JUST SENT ME THE REST I CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH THEM_

_Amazing Louis: Yeah, you enjoy those, and now I’m going to crawl in a hole and die._

_Alien Harry: Jon does a better Burr than I was expecting_

_Alien Harry: OMG you and Ni as Angelica and Eliza are perfect_

_Alien Harry: You’re really hot doing that LaFayette rap_

_Amazing Louis: You owe me.  I wanna see your Hamilton too_

_Alien Harry: Done.  Check my IG._

..*..*..*..

“Louis, come here!” Sandy calls as they wait for the bus that takes them from the airport to the hotel they’re staying in while in Miami.  

“Jesus, I can hardly breathe, is the air always this thick down here?” Dan complains as he scrolls through his phone.

“Niall, are you ready?” Jon asks once Louis has joined them.  

Niall messes around with a few more settings on his phone before aiming his phone towards the group of them.  “Yeah, I’ve got it queued up for the part that comes right after what Harry just posted.”

Louis looks around.  “What?  Did he post more?”  Ever since a few nights ago, Niall, Louis, and Harry have been taking turns posting pieces of them dramatically singing on Instagram.  All of it is Hamilton, and dubsmash has been quickly discarded in favor of sharing the videos with each other via social media. Harry's fans especially seem to be getting a kick out of it and Harry has gotten a good dialogue going with Lin-Manuel thanks to it too.

“Yeah, while we were on the plane,” Dan says at the same time Jon confirms, “Helpless, again.”

Louis fondly shakes his head.  “He really loves Eliza’s parts, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, so now all of you get to act like lovesick fools and sing the next part.  Ready?”

Louis squeezes in closer so he can try to be in the frame and Niall starts the music up a bit before where he’d start recording.  He counts them down and they began to sing along.

“One week later I’m writing a letter nightly.  Now my life gets better every letter that you write me.”  

Louis drops out as the other three sing, “Laughin’ at my sister ‘cause she wants to form a harem,” before he comes in as Angelica, “All I’m sayin’ is if you really loved me you would share him!” all attitude and taking over the frame.  All of them crack up and Niall squawks in excitement.

“That’s the best one yet, guys!”  They all keep laughing and talking as Niall posts it, continuing boisterously and enjoying each other’s company until twenty minutes later when their shuttle finally arrives.  Luckily, their hotel doesn’t seem to be too popular as they are the only ones climbing in.

Louis is pretty excited about being in Miami. They have the rest of the day and all morning tomorrow free to relax and explore before a pretty booked four days of filming and editing. Since this family’s experience with congenital atrichia was really only just beginning with Ana only being five years old, all of their videos are digitally backed and had been sent to Louis a few days ago. It made going into the filming easier, because he feels like he already has a good handle on Ana and her family, but it also made it more difficult because now he has so much to work with for her that he's going to have a very hard time editing it all down. Always better to have too much to work with than too little though.

“Bro,” Niall turns to Louis with a strange look on his face. “Have your Instagram followers suddenly shot up today?”

“I'm not sure,” Louis confesses. “I don't have my notifications turned on for Instagram. Why, have you?”

“Yeah, I've gone from about 500 to over 3000 since last night.”

“Shit, dude!” Sandy laughs. “What did you do for that to happen?”

Niall shrugs. Louis pulls his phone out of his pocket and finds his followers have jumped as well.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “It looks like I've now got almost 5k? How did that happen? No one knows who I am, I had maybe 100 before because I rarely used it until this week.”

“Didja use any hashtags?” Dan asks. “Hamilton is pretty popular, so maybe someone found you.”

“I hardly know how those things work, I definitely didn’t use hashtags.”  Suddenly Louis’ phone buzzes.

_Alien Harry: So...uhm...first I want to say oops and second I want to say I’m sorry._

Niall’s phone buzzes soon after as well.

“Harry?” Louis asks.

“Yeah, did he apologize to you too?”

Louis nods as he types out his response.

_Amazing Louis: Okay...Hi and why?_

Niall bursts out laughing suddenly.  “Oh my God, you have to read some of these comments these fans of Harry’s are leaving on this latest video!  I’m dying!”

Fans of Harry’s?  What did he do?  Louis turns over to the video Niall posted just a few minutes ago and finds already a few hundred comments.  Do those fans have post notifications turned on for them too?  Louis begins scrolling down and most of them are saying how fun these “Hamilton Battles” are between all of them and Harry, but there are also a lot of comments about how hot all of them are and even some asking if Harry is dating one of them.

“How’d his fans even find us?” Louis asks as his phone buzzes with another text from Harry.

_Alien Harry: I might have accidentally tagged all of your IGs in the video I posted last night.  I thought I was sending it to you two in a direct message?  Anyway, I tagged you and you and Niall both have public accounts unlike the other guys so now people have found you two at least and it can be a lot when that happens so...yeah.  Oops?  Sorry?_

Louis just chuckles.  

_Amazing Louis: It’s fine, Harold.  As long as I don’t get stalkers because of it, I’ll be fine._

The shuttle pulls up in front of the hotel so they all pile out and grab their bags to check in.  It’s a lot fancier than Louis is used to, but still comfortable.  They’re having to split up rooms between them now, so Louis and Niall grab one while the other three take the other.

Louis tosses his bags onto the first bed he comes to and flops down onto it, almost causing his bag to bounce off.

“Alright, sure, that can be yours,” Niall teases as he puts his bags next to the other bed before kicking off his shoes and sprawling starfish style on the other bed.  “Oh my God, our beds are made of clouds.  Those nuns from Sound of Music finally figured out how to pin one down.”

Louis cackles.  “What the hell are you talking about?  You do talk some shit.”

Sitting up to look at him fully, Niall is clearly affronted.  “Dude.  Sound of Music.  The nuns at the beginning when they’re singing about Maria, they say, ‘How do you catch a cloud and pin it down’.  I’m saying those fucking nuns not only caught clouds but they pinned them down and made mattresses out of them.  You have like five million sisters, you have to know Sound of Music.  How are you not following this?”

Louis is so tired from staying up too late making notes of everything he’s wanting to use for Bart’s parts that he ends up curling up and crying he’s laughing so hard.

“I truly don’t understand your brain sometimes, but I love to witness what comes out of your mouth thanks to it,” he finally gets out.

Niall is now staring at him, completely unamused.

“It’s the Sound of Music.  You don’t laugh at it.  I know you have the whole movie memorized, you’re just not admitting it.  Because of that, I’m uninviting you for tonight.”

Louis’ brows knit together in confusion.  “What’s going on tonight?  I didn’t think we had anything?”

“We don’t,” Niall confirms as he grabs his toiletries and walks to the bathroom.  “Which is why the other guys and I thought we could all go out, but now you aren’t invited anymore.”

Louis shrugs even though he knows Niall can’t see him.  “That’s okay.  I can do more viewing of the home videos for Ana.  This deadline for Sundance is coming up fast and I’m a bit worried that we won’t be able to make it if I don’t keep up as much as possible while we are filming and everything.”

Niall pokes his head out of the bathroom.  

“No way, dude.  You aren’t allowed to work tonight.  That’s the point of the night off.  You need to just stay here, bored without me, and sleep or something.  But definitely _not_ work.”

Louis rolls his eyes before hefting himself up and off the bed.  His decision to not unpack while in Putney was a really bad decision in the end.  All his things had ended up strewn throughout his room and it was horrible.  He decided that he should actually unpack in the future to avoid that from happening again.

“Niall?  How bad would it be if instead of doing laundry I just bought new clothes at every new place we went?  Would that be bad?”

Niall laughs loudly from the bathroom before turning the water for the shower on.  “Where’d you put it all?  I dunno how you got everything packed in those two bags to begin with.”

“Good point.”  Louis sighs before sorting out his dirty clothes from his clean clothes.  “Guess I’ll spend the night doing laundry.”

..*..*..*..

_Amazing Louis: I’m bored.  Entertain me._

_Alien Harry: Why are you bored?  You’ve got a free night in Miami.  Why aren’t you clubbing or something?_

_Amazing Louis: Niall uninvited me from hanging out with the cause because of the Sound of Music._

_Amazing Louis: And I really needed to do laundry because I realized I didn’t have any clean underwear._

_Amazing Louis: So now I’m here at like 11 pm in the laundry room so someone doesn’t take my boxers that are taking way too long to dry._

_Alien Harry: You could’ve just gone without.  It’s more comfortable than you would think._

_Amazing Louis: I’ll keep that in mind for next time ;)_

_Alien Harry: But you’re seriously doing laundry on your free night in Miami?_

_Amazing Louis: Haaaaaarryyyyyyyyy stop reminding me of my poor decisions and entertaaaaaiiiiin meeeeeee_

_Alien Harry: What exactly are you wanting me to do?_

_Amazing Louis: Just help me forget that I’m stuck in this room listening to the weird dryer clanging every time it turns._

_Alien Harry: Did I mention I’m currently ignoring Irving at a business dinner for you right now?  Can I reply once I’m not out with his family and mine?_

_Amazing Louis: Fine._

_Amazing Louis: But you owe me!_

_Alien Harry: Of course I do._

..*..*..*..

“Louis, you are in a butt load of trouble!” Fizzy yells.

“Shit,” he says as he pulls the phone away from his ear. “What the hell did I do to deserve that? God, Mena, I think my ear is ringing now!” Louis messes with his ear a little, but he knows it's fine. He just was really caught off guard as to why his sister was yelling at him when it was only 8:30 in the morning.

“These Hamilton Battles! How long have you been doing them? There's seriously like 8 minutes worth of you guys going back and forth with them! And that implies you talk to Harry a lot more than you ever said! I didn't know you two were friends!”

“Wait, how do you know about the videos?” Louis’ follower count has continued to rise and in the past three days it has reached above 50k now. He's still not sure why, he's rarely the one to post the videos, but whatever.

Louis could practically hear Fizzy rolling her eyes when she answers. “ _Because_ , Mortimer, you're trending on Facebook.”

Louis sits there in silence. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you've gone viral,” she explains. “Someone took all the videos that you, Harry, and Neil posted and made one long compilation of you guys singing a huge amount of Hamilton and put it online and now it's got millions of views.”

“Niall,” he corrects without thinking.  “And you can do that?”

“Oh my God, Lou.  Yes, you can do that,” Fizzy berates as she goes on a bit longer about how many people are talking about them.

“Wait, Fizz, hold it,” Louis commands as he closes his laptop and rolls onto the other side of the bed to lay on the pillow.  “Why did people even include the rest of us?  It would have been just as exciting if they’d kept it just with Harry.  At least he can sing.”

Louis can hear her sigh as Niall comes walking back in after showering.  Louis nods at him as she starts explaining.  

“It would not have been as much fun without you guys!  Harry obviously is specifically responding to you and when you guys did the alternating of parts of the songs so we have almost the entire song pieced together it’s actually really cool!”  

Louis guesses he can see that.  Having more of the songs would make Harry’s parts make a bit more sense.

“Plus, you and Neil-”

“Niall,” he corrects again, catching the brunette’s attention.

“-whatever, you two can actually hold your own and the other guys can rap pretty well and everyone’s talking about how hot you guys are which, ugh, but whatever.”

Louis laughs out loud.  “Wait,” he chuckles.  “People think we’re hot?”  Niall is now even more interested than he already was so he comes and sits beside Louis in only his towel.

“Whatcha talking about?” Niall whispers.

“I guess we’ve gone viral and everyone thinks we’re hot,” Louis responds as he puts his sister on speaker.  “Mena, I’ve got Ni here too so I put you on speaker.”

“Kay.  Hey, Neil!” she greets.

“You’re calling him the wrong name on purpose now,” Louis chides without much heat behind it.

Her laugh sounds a bit tinny through the speakers, but it causes a pang of homesickness to hit.  He’s not usually away from his family for longer than a few days, especially Fizzy.  He’s missing them more than he expected to.

“Well, yeah.  I am,” she admits.  “Anyway, the world apparently thinks you two are hot and can sing and since your profile is public everyone is shipping you with Harry, Lou.  They found out you’re not straight and immediately there were Larry shippers.”

“Who’s Larry?” Louis asks confused.

“That’s their ship name for you.  Louis and Harry, makes Larry,” Niall explains without question.

Louis turns to look at him.  “How do you know that?”

“I’m the original shipper, aren’t I?” He teases.  “I came up with that name myself.  I’ve seen some calling you Lourry as well, but I like that Larry is already a real name.”

It’s all said so matter of factly that Louis is left without much to say.  He just blinks and looks back at his phone.  “So millions of views of that Hamilton battles compilation?”

Niall’s jaw drops.

“Fuck me,” he whispers.  “Millions?!”

“Yep!  People are loving you guys.  I’ve gotta go, but check it out!  I tagged you on facebook, Lou.”

“Thanks, hon,” Louis says.  “Have a great day!  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“That doesn’t leave much for me to stay away from,” Fizzy teases.

“Exactly, so you really better stay away from it!”  They shout I love yous before hanging up and Louis immediately pulls up his facebook app.

His notifications are insane.  Luckily he does have privacy standards on his facebook fairly high, otherwise who knows what people could access on there, but he has thousands of friend requests and his notifications are insane.  People tagging him in things and trying to send him messages when he doesn’t know them.  He is suddenly very grateful that he changed his settings last year so people can’t tag him in posts without his approval unless they are confirmed friends.  He goes to his profile and the top post is the one Fizzy tagged him in.

He angles his phone so Niall can see it as well and they watch the clips this fan, or whoever, put all together to make some sense out of the songs they’ve performed.

“Holy shit,” Niall says at the same time Louis laughs, “Wow, we’ve wasted a lot of time with this, haven’t we?”  They both laugh at their own antics and how well it works when they are all put together like that.  After shutting off the phone, Niall gets up to get dressed and Louis goes to take his turn in the shower figuring they’ll talk more about it later.

They have one more day in Miami, and Louis is honestly grateful.  Being this far south during the summer is no treat and he constantly feels like he has a layer of stickiness on his skin as soon as he walks outside.  It’s disgusting and has him showering two or three times every day and still feeling gross minutes later.  He loves the food, the city, and the people, he just wishes it weren’t quite so...hot.

As he’s scrubbing his body, his mind wanders to the things that he still needs to do today before they leave and some of the things he wants to film before flitting to Harry and the fact that they’ve been texting pretty nonstop lately.  They’ve even gotten to the point where they talk on the phone almost daily, always finding a few minutes to just chat and relax a little.  

Louis has never been a big fan of the phone, but hearing Harry’s voice is becoming a comfort thing.  A way to help him relax when he’s getting a bit too worked up over deadlines and his to do list.  Harry always knows just what to say to get him out of his head, and same with the other way around.  It’s like something changed between them that day Louis had to help him before the press junket and ever since then there’s been an added layer of intimacy to their interactions.

They of course still tease and laugh over the stupid shit they both feel the need to share with each other, but they also look after one another.  Make sure to ask about their days, how they’re feeling, that kind of thing.  Every night, Harry has started asking Louis to rank his day on a scale of Classic Rock.  Highway to Hell is the worst and Stairway to Heaven is the best.  Louis sometimes searches for the most ridiculous answers to give him when he asks just to hear his laugh because when he finds a good one, Harry always makes sure to send an audio message of his laughter.

Louis might also be sure to save those messages.

As if that’s all not enough, in addition to the Hamilton Battles, they’ve taken to sending each other a ridiculous amount of selfies.  It all started when Louis woke up with the worst bed head he’d ever seen and he knew it would make Harry laugh.  Harry’s only response was to send back a photo of him looking perfect since he had an interview that morning on Good Morning America.  It wasn’t fair how good he looked in a bright yellow floral shirt.  Who else could wear that?  It wasn’t right, really.

Just thinking about Harry in that selfie as Louis continues to scrub has him getting half hard.  He frantically tries to think of something, anything, else.  He absolutely _cannot_ allow himself to tug one off while thinking of Harry.  That has to go against some rule, right?  It doesn’t matter how hot someone is or how much they flirt, as a good friend Louis really shouldn’t think about them when he’s hard, especially while in the shower possibly hoping to get off since that’s the only moment he has some privacy.

As his hand travels lower on his stomach, Louis tries to focus on some of his favorite porn videos.  He begins thinking of some of the super hot office sex scenes he likes so much, but it backfires horribly.  All he ends up imagining is Harry fingering him as he’s leaning over an oak desk that’s entirely devoid of any office paraphernalia.  

His hand slowly moves with more purpose along his cock, and then he thinks back to the way Harry’s fingers grazing the skin of his upper arm that one time they actually met had his entire body in goosebumps and he just knows it would be amplified by ten if Harry actually had his long, incredible fingers wrapped around his dick much less inside of him.

And that is it.  Louis is done for.  His mind is floods with Harry and it’s all over embarrassingly fast.  He orgasms, breathless, while trying to bite down on Harry’s name in case Niall can hear him and, well, fuck.  Louis is definitely in trouble.

..*..*..*..

_Hazza: How was the flight to Seattle?_

_hamLOUton: Smelly.  The dude next to me was disgusting._

_Hazza: Gross.  I’m sorry._

_Hazza: You doing better now?_

_hamLOUton: Yeah, all I can smell is the cleaning products they used in the bathroom now, so I’m sure the inside of my nose has been well bleached hah_

_Hazza: Well...that’s better...I guess…_

_Hazza: What about spraying around some cologne?  Or aftershave?_

_hamLOUton: I could do that.  Imagine the room smelling like Suave for Men would be better than the bleach._

_Hazza: That’s why I always travel with candles.  They cover up the other smells and also calm me and remind me of home._

_hamLOUton: Well if you aren’t just domestic AF_

_Hazza: Nothing wrong with that.  And I travel a lot, I’ve learned all kinds of tricks._

_hamLOUton: What kinds of tricks?  Not that I’ll implement any of them because I’ll be home in less than two weeks now, but I am intrigued._

_Hazza: Well, for one, towels.  They keep you from messing up the sheets or duvet embarrassingly for the cleaning people to find later_

_hamLOUton: I uh…_

_hamLOUton: Well.  I have a roommate for the remainder of the trip, so I suppose that any activities that might cause that for me are out of the running anyway, but thanks for that tip._

_Hazza: Damn.  Guess that means phone sex is out.  We’ll just have to settle for sexting._

_hamLOUton: I can’t tell if you’re joking with me right now or not…_

_Hazza: ;)_

_hamLOUton: Damn you._

..*..*..*..

Harry won’t leave Louis’ mind, which is actually becoming quite the problem because he is having a hard time keeping from popping untimely boners at any given point.  It really is awkward when he’s zoned out during dinner with the guys and he realizes they’re ready to leave and he’s got a semi that can’t be hidden well for, as far as they can tell, no good reason.

But there really is good reason.  Harry might not have been serious about the sexting but he’d definitely ramped up the flirting and teasing.  Just this morning he had sent a selfie of him wearing these obscenely tight white jeans his stylist had gotten him and asked if Louis thought they were too tight.  Louis had nearly swallowed his tongue because he could clearly see that a: Harry wasn’t wearing underwear and b: he was pretty damn hard and there was NOTHING left to the imagination.  Louis ended up warning him to hide his dick away if he was planning on being around children, but that photo is still emblazoned in his mind clearly over twelve hours later.

Harry had also mentioned meeting up with them when they got back to Illinois since he had a break in his schedule at that time, which was great, really, but it was only making it that much more difficult for Louis to concentrate on what he was needing to until then.  They are now getting seriously close to the deadline, so Louis has been trying to utilize every free moment he has and get as much done as possible using what he has available for organizing what they’ve gotten filmed.

He is actually incredibly proud of what they’ve brought together so far.  Jon has been an incredible assistant and has made sure things are as easy for Louis as possible and Sandy and Dan are doing exactly what Louis needs them to do in order to have the footage fit seamlessly between the different families and stories.  Assuming this last family in New Mexico that they are meeting in a few days works out how he has planned, he already knows how he wants to have the stories weave together.  It’s just a matter of whether he can make it turn out as well as he has it plotted out in his head.  That’s sometimes more time consuming than he anticipates and unfortunately time is one thing this project doesn’t have much of.  

And then here is Harry.  He keeps sending distracting photos making the time go even faster than Louis would like.  He really should request that Harry stop sending them, but that’s something that will never happen.  Whatever is going on between them Louis has no intention of ruining.

As it is, their time in Seattle is already up and Louis is quite sad.  He has enjoyed their short time in this city more than he did in Vermont or Miami.  There was just something about the feel of the city that made Louis feel more calm and comfortable than he had been in the previous two places and he had absolutely zero idea of what to expect in New Mexico.

According to Niall, the family they would be interviewing actually lived on Reservation lands and they had special permission by the chief to be there.  Louis is honored, but it puts even more pressure on him to make sure he was handling not only the subject but the people involved in this film with the utmost respect.  It makes him focus even more on making sure he is doing his best to relate these people as humans and show their lives and their stories the way they want to be seen.

They got back to the hotel after dinner.Thinking about the project and the weight that rests on Louis’ shoulders to do these stories justice definitely has Louis’ dick back to how it should be.  Thank goodness.  Louis doesn’t want Niall to corner him about it like he knows he would if he notices it.

Louis bids the other guys goodnight and heads back to his shared room with Niall, Niall going with the other guys to watch some movies while Louis works.  He flops himself onto his bed and takes a second to massage his scalp with the pads of his fingers, messing his hair up so it is embarrassingly messy.  Which of course means he must first document it and send the photo to Harry.

Once the photo is sent he sets himself up with his pack of rolos he somehow still has in his bag from their flight to Seattle, grabs his laptop and headphones, and pulls up the last few clips he was working on.  He becomes so immersed in the editing and organizing he doesn’t even realize that more than three hours have passed until Niall rips the earbuds from his ears so Louis can hear him ask, “Dude, can I turn off the lights or what?”

Louis looks around and realizes it is not only dark, but Niall is only wearing a pair of boxers with his glasses on and he looks exhausted.  Louis scrubs his eyes, which are burning from the concentrated focus he’d had on the computer for so long, and stretches out his back.  It pops like crazy and he realizes it’s actually gotten quite sore.  He knew he should have set up shop at the desk in the room, but he’d been stupid and sat on the bed instead.

Looking at Niall, he nods and the room goes dark.  Louis quickly saves everything he’d been working on and backs it up to his external hard drive, shuts the laptop, and gets up from the bed.  Using the flashlight setting on his phone, he maneuvers around the room so he can also strip down to his boxers and go brush his teeth.  It’s now nearing 2 AM and if he wants any sleep at all before their flight in the morning he really needs to get to sleep like an hour ago.

He splashes water on his face after brushing his teeth and calls it good enough before padding his way back to his bed.  Niall is one of the lightest sleepers he has ever met, so despite the fact the boy is snoring, Louis does his best to not make a sound.  Once he’s finally comfortable in bed he turns off the flashlight and checks his notifications like he always does before bed.

He clears out his notifications on Facebook and Instagram (they’ve started slowing down how many Hamilton Battles they post since it’s a bit more stressful at the end of the project, but Louis still is gaining followers at a ridiculous pace) and is about to move on to the next app when a response from Harry finally comes in.

_Hazza: That’s some serious sex hair._

Covering his mouth with the back of his hand so he doesn’t actually laugh out loud and wake up Niall, Louis calms his breathing before responding.

_Bumtastic: I wish it was sex hair, but alas.  I’m basically celibate._

He moves on to checking his email next and is reviewing the latest response to what he’d sent to Irving and Jeff when the next response from Harry comes in.

_Hazza: I could always help you change that ;)_

Louis just sits there and stares at his phone.  He blinks a few times to make sure that he really is reading what he thinks he’s reading, before closing out of his messages and reopening them.  The message really is there.

Well, now what is he supposed to say?  Should he accept the offer and then if Harry reveals he was just kidding, Louis can play it off like he was too?  Should he send a simple lol and leave it at that unless Harry presses the subject?  He’s at a loss as to what to do with this now.

Louis’ phone buzzes again so he unlocks it once more and reads the new message added.

_Hazza: Niall’s probably asleep, I bet you could be really quiet, couldn’t you?_

Holy shit.  Holy fucking shit, Harry was serious and Louis is once again hard.  When was the last time he even had a moment to give himself a release?  Louis can’t remember at this point because all he can think of is _Harry_ and _This is happening_ and _Shit sexting is hotter than I thought it would be and we haven’t even really started yet_.

_Bumtastic: I’m not really good at being quiet._

Louis sits there and his thumbs nervously twitch over the keyboard like he’s about to start typing before even knowing what he’s going to say.  Luckily Harry responds before he can send something ridiculous.

_Hazza: Hmm...so are you saying this needs to wait or are you saying you like a challenge?_

Louis’ mouth drops open and he fumbles to keep his hands on his phone as well.  When he finally regains control, he has to delete the random letters and symbols he had accidentally typed.  He slowly writes his response, reads it three times to make sure he means it, and then hits send.

_Bumtastic: I think I’m saying I’m up for a challenge…_

Louis gnaws on his bottom lip and begins to fidget in his bed.  Hell, he can’t handle this waiting, so he pushes his boxers down to his thighs so he can grip his overexcited dick hard.  He can’t have himself going simply because he’s thinking about phone sex with Harry.  That would be pathetic.  Texting while having sex still counts as phone sex, right?  Maybe that only qualifies if you’re talking and this is still sexting.  He’s going to have to look into the details of the distinction when this is over.  Louis is quickly brought back to his hard dick and the gorgeous man texting him when his phone vibrates.  He picks it back up, pulls his boxers back on, and scrambles out of bed as soon as he reads it.

_Hazza: Did you grab a towel?  I was serious earlier, they save you lots of trouble and messes in those hotel rooms._

Louis once again travels across the dark hotel room attempting to make as little noise as possible so he can grab one of the hand towels he and Niall have basically been ignoring during their stay.  He stubs his toe when he tries to take a corner too soon and bites on his arm so he doesn’t let out any sounds that might wake his roommate and therefore ruin any chances he has at kinda getting off with Harry.

He limps his way back to the bed, only letting out a little whine of pain as his toe continues to throb, and throws himself onto the bed.  His dick has flagged a bit, but just knowing what’s coming next has it very quickly getting back to where it was just moments before.  

_Bumtastic: As hot as preparation is, I prefer the kind that leads to something more._

_Bumtastic: I have the towel beside me, btw._

Louis tosses his phone down on the towel and quickly scrambles around in bed so he is covered, should Niall wake up during this whole thing, but so he can also keep himself and the bed as clear as possible.  Once comfortable he pushes his boxers almost to his knees, turns to his side so the towel is placed beneath him, and then begins to pull on his dick slowly.  He is just finding a good rhythm when his phone goes off again and he feels a thrum of excitement over what he’s going to find.

_Hazza: Are you touching yourself?  Because I’m incredibly hard just thinking about you jerking off in bed while Niall sleeps._

Oh God.  How is Harry being hard thinking about Louis making Louis so hard?  This is a mess, but it’s a sexy mess.  He’ll take it.

_Bumtastic: Yeah.  I’m imagining my hand is yours.  What would you do if you were here?_

Louis has never done this before, honestly.  He dabbled in phone sex a bit with a previous boyfriend, but they were both a bit awkward and never gave it much of a try.  This is already more successful and Louis is beginning to think he was seriously missing out.

_Hazza: I’d first touch you so light, you’d know I was there but you wouldn’t get any relief.  After teasing you that way for a bit, I’d slowly build the pressure but also twist right at the top, right where you’re most sensitive.  When I could tell you’re starting to get closer, I’d thumb across the top and use my other hand to massage your balls.  I bet you’re smooth down there, aren’t you?  You seem the type to keep it nice and clean so the skin is soft and silky to the touch._

Louis has to bite back a groan.  How the fuck does Harry know that about him?  It’s like he knows how Louis likes to be touched without ever having done it!  Hell, they’ve only been in the same room physically once!

_Bumtastic: You’re right, I do like it clean down there._

_Bumtastic: I’d skip the handjob and go right to giving you a fast and dirty blowjob.  I love feeling the weight of a big cock in my mouth.  I bet you’d like to see me choke on yours, too._

Louis can hardly believe what he’s typing.  He’s never been one for dirty talk, but it’s like a part of him he didn’t even know existed is being woken up by this experience.  It feels amazing.  He brings one hand up to his mouth and sticks to fingers in.  It’s a paltry substitute for a cock, but it does the trick.  It feels so good to have a weight on his tongue, it was really getting him close already.  But then Harry sent another message.

_Hazza: You know I would.  You’d probably let me fuck your mouth too._

Simply imagining giving the control to Harry has Louis shoving his fist into his mouth so he doesn’t cry out loud and he spills onto his belly and the towel.  His entire body feels like it is on fire and the thought of how Harry probably has his head thrown back and his eyes squeezed shut as he comes into Louis’ mouth has his dick spurting out one last stream of come.  He pulls his hand from his mouth so he can breathe easier and allow his heart to slow back to it’s normal pace.  

Louis is fairly sure he is melting into the pillows.  That’s the best orgasm he’s had for sure since he left home, but possibly even since before.  It’s been too long since he’s been with someone else, but this was closer than he’s been in ages.  He’s going to use that as his excuse for why he came so embarrassingly fast, but he has a feeling it’s also partly to do with Harry.

Harry.  Fuck.  Louis had no idea texting could be so hot.  When he looks down at his phone again, he sees it was lit up with several messages.  He cleans his hand off on the towel, which did the trick and caught everything, gentry tried to wipe his sensitive cock off as well, and then after tossing it to the other side of the bed with his other dirty clothes Louis picks up his phone.

_Hazza: I’ve imagined you on your knees for me so many times._

_Hazza: You’ve gone quiet, did you come already?_

_Hazza: Fuck, that’s so hot thinking you’ve come just thinking about me fucking your face._

Louis quickly responds before pulling up his boxers and falling into the best sleep he’s had in weeks.

_Bumtastic: I did come, embarrassing how fast your words got me there.  Passing out now, talk more about this in the morning?_

..*..*..*..

_Hazza: We really should talk about last night._

_Lou: Yeah.  It was hot._

_Hazza:  It was.  Is it something you’d be interested in again?_

_Lou: Definitely, but I would especially like to not have to deal with the phones as a middle man._

_Lou: You’re for sure gonna be there for the filming of Fizzy’s part?_

_Hazza: God, I want to touch you so bad._

_Hazza: I will absolutely be there._

_Lou: Don’t bother with a hotel, you can stay at my place._

_Hazza: Fuck yes._

_Lou: But Harry, I have one rule._

_Hazza: ?_

_Lou: I don’t put out unless you’ve taken me to dinner._

_Hazza: You have no idea what you’re asking for.  You’ve got it, babe._

..*..*..*..

Louis is so stoked. He can't believe it but he actually got to FaceTime with Irving fucking Azoff about the last clips he sent over and he was ecstatic with how it was coming together. Louis even described how some of what they had filmed so far in New Mexico would work in and what his plans were with his own family and Irving was feeling quite confident they could not only reach the submission deadline for Sundance but get in.

Fuck, Louis wants that so bad. Irving saying that with such confidence when he's as skilled and experienced a producer as he now has Louis practically thrumming with energy. He texts his family chat the good news before quickly dialing Harry. He isn't sure what his schedule is for today, but it is worth a try.

He's making people in this tiny desert town think he's insane as he hops and jumps in excitement outside of the tiny mom and pop restaurant where they were grabbing lunch. They still have about forty minutes before they need to head back to the family’s house for the last round of filming.

Louis is scrubbing his hand through his soft fringe and messy hair that has gotten ridiculously sweaty from being in the probably 200 degree heat, but he doesn't care because his blood is pumping at 3000 miles a minute and Irving likes what he's doing and his phone is ringing for Harry and he gets to see his family tomorrow and-

“Hey, Louis,” Harry finally greets, sounding a bit off from how he usually does. Louis is too excited to notice and jumps right in.

“Haz! I am not throwing away my shot! I am not throwing away my shot! You know I'm just like my country, I'm young scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot!”  He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, left arm in the air, when instead of hearing Harry singing along he hears his soft chuckle and a very familiar voice that doesn't belong to Harry come on the line.

“I knew you lip synced to Hamilton but I didn't realize you actually sang them too.”

Louis’ face goes slack in surprise.

“Holy shit. Harry, you're with Lin-Manuel Miranda,” Louis breathes out in shock. “You didn't warn me and I just sang horribly his own song to him, what the fuck! I'm so sorry for butchering your song, man! You're a genius and I kinda love you? Oh my God, can we erase this and have me call back and try all over again because this is a mess and I'm so sorry, we can pretend it never even happened!”

Louis’ breathing might be going a little funny now because he kinda has hero worshipped Lin-Manuel Miranda ever since he took a trip to NYC and couldn't afford the tickets to any of the popular musicals so he and Liam got tickets to what was then an unknown show called In the Heights. Louis and Liam met Lin-Manuel by the stage door afterwards and Louis knew it was only a brief moment, but it had changed his life. And now he's talking to the dude on the phone after butchering his song.

“No no, I don't want that! I like this how it is!” Lin-Manuel Miranda says. Maybe Louis should stop referring to him by his full name in his head. Dammit, he's still freaking out and the heat might be making the soles of his shoes melt on the pavement.

“I really do apologize, I was already hyped which is why I made the call and then you're there and I'm just kinda overwhelmed while trying not to die of heatstroke,” Louis admits as he checks the bottoms of his chucks. He really hopes they aren't getting destroyed here, he's only had them for a few months and they were finally getting out of that annoying perfectly white stage.

“That's fine. I'll let ya talk to Harry here, our break from filming the interview is almost over so we'll have to get back and don't want to take all your time. It was great talking with you, dude! I'm a bit fan of your Hamilton Battles and hope you keep them up!”

Louis is fairly sure he makes a high pitched squeaking sound in response before Harry comes on.

“Hey babe, sorry about that. Thought you'd like the surprise but you're off speaker now,” Harry apologizes. “I do only have three minutes until filming starts again though, so what's up?”

“What are you filming?” Louis asks instead, still trying to pull himself together.

“Ellen. Was supposed to be me and Ariana Grande, but she got sick and Lin was in town so with the popularity of our Hamilton Battles she thought a segment with the two of us would be fun and it's about to start. So tell me! What's going on?”

Louis wishes he could listen to Harry's voice a bit longer. It is bringing him back to earth in the most soothing way and he really does love it.

“Just that Irving actually facetimed me because he's so excited about the clips I sent him last night,” he explains. “He thinks we'll make deadline and be accepted.”

“Lou! That's so great! I'm so excited for you! Okay, I'm going to call you back after because Michelle is asking for my phone but talk to you soon! And congratulations!” Harry spits out before hanging up.

Louis laughs a bit hysterically before going back into the heavenly air conditioned diner to finish his meal. He throws himself down into his chair and just stares at his food for a minute causing the other guys to go silent and wait for an explanation.

He eventually looks up and takes in the expectant looks on Jon, Sandy, Dan, and Niall’s faces before allowing a huge grin to spread across his face.

“He said we've all done a great job and he thinks with what we've been able to get, if we finish it right we should have no problem being accepted.”

Louis licks his lips and waits for it to sink in.

“He likes it?” Sandy asks. Louis nods slowly, popping a now cold fry in his mouth.

“And those scenes we filmed in Seattle did have too jarring an effect from what he could tell? The framing had to be so different I wasn't sure,” Dan trailed off nervously.

“Nope, he thought the way we had used the home videos as almost buffers between the interview clips allows for a more natural transition so it worked well.”

Louis looks at Jon, surprised he's still quiet. “Alright then,” he concedes, a small smile growing. “Let's finish lunch and get the rest of what we need here so we can get to Illinois and finish this thing!”

Niall lifts his glass of Coke so they can all toast their sodas to the project and wrap things up. They have to keep on the previous level of quality so they don't ruin it in the last hour, but Louis isn't sure the bubbling sensation beneath his skin is going to be leaving anytime soon and he thinks that fizzing anticipation it's causing can't be anything but good.

..*..*..*..

_Hazza: You’ll be able to watch Ellen tomorrow, right?_

_Hazza: That's when the episode airs and you might have been discussed a bit…_

_Lou: Uh, I won't be home to watch it live, but I can have someone record it and watch it once I'm back_

_Lou: Oh so you discussed me? I'm a trust fund, baby you can trust me. But for real, what was said?_

_Hazza: You'll just have to wait and see tomorrow night!_

_Lou: I hate you._

_Hazza: *snort* Yeah right. You can't wait to get in my shorts. You don't hate me at all._

_Lou: I think you are saying your feelings towards me, not vice versa._

_Hazza: You're right. I can't wait to get my mouth on you._

_Lou: Fuck, Harold, I'm in public! You can't just say shit like that when I can't do anything about it!_

_Hazza: Whoops ;)_

..*..*..*..

“I’ll see you guys in the morning, okay?  My mom wants to make us all breakfast, so let me know if you need a ride or the address or anything, k?” Louis calls to the guys as he makes his way to Lottie and Fizzy.  They are waiting somewhat patiently by the car for him to finish his goodbyes before attacking him with hugs.

“Hey, girls!” he cries as he lets go of his wheeled bags so he can grab ahold of his sisters.  Squeezing them both a bit tighter so they both tuck their heads into his neck, he warmly says, “I missed you.”

“We missed you too, Mortimer,” Fizzy responds.

“Yeah,” Lottie agrees.  “Even if I don’t get the Mortimer thing.”

Fizzy squawks in protest and pulls away to more effectively fight with her sister.  “You started calling him Mortimer yourself just yesterday!”

Lottie just shrugs and heads back to the car.  Turning back to Louis, Fizzy insists, “She really did, Mortimer.  She did.”

He pats her head, taking note that today she’s wearing the wig with the curls loose on her shoulders.  

“I believe you, Philomena.”  She gives a satisfied grunt in return as she climbs into the back seat.  He grabs his bags, tosses them into the trunk, and gets into the driver’s seat.  “So, you two come to pick me up and then make me drive home myself?”

“I _hate_ the freeway around here, Lou,” Lottie complains.  “All the traffic and the out of towners who don’t drive for shit scare me.”

“Hey, watch your mouth,” he chides before merging with traffic.  “But I get it.  So did you record Ellen like I asked?”

“Yep,” Lottie answers absentmindedly while she texts and twirls her hair.  Louis doesn’t understand how she can do so much at once.  “We didn’t get to watch it ourselves yet either, so it’ll be new for all of us.”

“Cool.”

The drive home is uneventful outside of the ridiculous amounts of traffic left over from rush hour.  They only live about forty-five minutes from Midway usually, but with the extra traffic and accidents it takes them closer to an hour and a half.  They eventually see their exit for Naperville and grab some pizza for the family before finally getting to their final destination.  Louis already decided to sleep at his family’s house that night to make things easier.  Considering they only just got back and it is already 8 PM, he is grateful for that.

They creep in and find everyone except the youngest twins still awake and ready for them.

“Louis!” his mom cries as she pulls him in for a hug.  “The flights go smoothly?”

“Yeah, just a bit of turbulence is all,” he confirms before pulling away for hugs from Daisy and Phoebe and a quick hug from Dan.  “Brought pizza from Malnati’s!”

A loud cheer erupts from the twins and Jay sends Lottie to grab plates and napkins as the rest set it all up in front of the television.

“Do you know why Harry wanted to be sure you saw this interview?” Dan asks as he brings in glasses of water for everyone.

Louis shakes his head, trying to chew enough so he can speak around the pizza.  He had missed his Chicago style pizza while he was gone.  No one else comes anywhere close to this.  

“Nah, just that he really wanted me to watch it.  He was on with Lin-Manuel Miranda though, so I’m guessing it has something to do with the Hamilton Battles?”  He shrugs and takes another big bite.  Once everyone is comfortable in their seats, Jay hits play.

The introduction is the same as Ellen usually has, lots of fun dancing, some banter, and other silly things that have them laughing.  When she introduces Harry and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Louis is incredibly happy he hadn’t taken a drink of water yet because he might have choked.  Harry was in what looked to be a mostly sheer black floral shirt with black jeggings.  They couldn’t have been anything other than jeggings, or Louis is pretty sure there’s no way he could have gotten them on.  

He realizes he has been frozen while staring at Harry when he feels a slight nudge from Dan.  He jerks a bit and looks at him to see a slight smirk on his face while staring at the TV.  Right.  Act normal, Louis.  Geez.

He tunes back in and finds himself enjoying Harry’s deep, slow cadence even more when it’s contrasted and complemented by Ellen and Lin’s faster rhythms.  Their back and forths as they discussed the popularity of Hamilton, Lin’s future plans, and Harry’s acting is greatly amusing and a lot of fun to watch, but Louis knows the part he is watching this for is coming up so he sets his plate down on the coffee table and pulls his phone out of his back pocket.  It has been quiet since he took it off airplane mode, but he promised to text as he watches so he lets Harry know he is now.

_Lou: How’d you stuff your legs in those pants?  Is your dick screaming?_

Jay skips the commercials and when it comes back, Ellen is rubbing her hands together.  

“Harry,” she says.  “I have to ask, only because seriously thousands of your fans have been badgering me to.”

Harry puts on a suspicious yet coy expression that tells Louis he has a good idea of where this is going.  “Mmhmm, do you really?”

“Yes,” she says seriously, sitting straight up.  “I absolutely do.  What is going on between you and this Louis Tomlinson I keep hearing about?”

The crowd begins cheering loudly as Harry blushes a little and shows off his dimpled grin.  Louis wants to lose himself in that dimple, but he also can’t help but listen to whatever it is Harry is going to say about him and why they singled him out specifically.

“For those of you who have somehow missed this new media sensation, Louis Tomlinson along with Niall Horan, Sandy Beals, Dan Richards, and Jon Shone have been having so called Hamilton Battles with Harry here via Instagram.  They have been going back and forth lip synching, or sometimes singing along, to clips of Hamilton and the fans have been going crazy, haven’t they?”  The camera pans back off of Ellen and over to the couch where Harry is now smiling widely while Lin has turned his body entirely to face Harry.

“Yes, Harry!  Do tell us more!” Lin cries, tilting his head as if this is the most interesting subject known to man.

“It’s all gone a little crazier than we ever expected, really,” Harry starts.  “I tagged them in one of my posts without thinking they may not have been found before this and after that a fan found as many clips as they could and put them all together into a medley almost and it went viral.  Like, millions of views?”  Harry turns to the audience when they cheer and gives a shrug.  “That video might actually have more hits than some of my music videos, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that!”  Harry has gone into his theatrical mode at this point, and Louis is loving it.  He’s giggling watching Harry ham it up for the audience.

“No, no,” Ellen pretends to help him feel better.  “I’m sure, I’m sure it really doesn’t and it means nothing, but you still haven’t answered my question.  How do you know these guys?”

And now, Louis really understands.  Harry didn’t want him to watch because it was an opportunity for him to talk about Louis or the Hamilton Battles, though that was great and Louis is quite flattered.  Harry is using this as his opportunity to introduce the idea of the documentary.

Harry easily brings himself back to be serious again, as Louis knows this is a subject that is very important to him.

“Well, it’s an interesting story really.  As many of you know, in addition to growing my hair out because I liked it, I also had an end goal of wanting to donate it to a good cause.”  He paused when once again the cheers in the crowd grew loud.  “Yes, thank you.  So, a good friend of mine from school, Niall, whom you mentioned earlier, suggested the charity he works for, Skin Deep.”  Harry went on for a short time explaining the kind of work Skin Deep does and how it was a very easy decision to make to give them his hair.

“I just really wanted to make sure it went to a charity that maybe didn’t have as much recognition and for a condition that is lesser known.  I wanted to not only make a difference for that one person who happened to receive my wig, but I wanted to see if I could in some way help spread awareness.”

The crowd once again cheered, and as Ellen thanked him and praised him for this decision, Louis looked over at the other couch where the rest of his family sat, frozen.  His mom and Fizzy were both openly crying already, Lottie was snuggling Daisy, and Phoebe had wrapped herself around Dan’s legs.  Louis couldn’t help but love Harry just a little bit more because of how much his dedication and passion means to his family and…

Wait.  Love?  It’s not been long enough for Louis to consider himself in love.  There’s no way.  It was just a phrase, right?  Definitely.  Just a phrase.

“...went to a young lady by the name of Felicite Tomlinson who, with the help of her older brother Louis, decided to thank me by making a fantastic music video to one of my songs.  At the end of this, Louis included little snippets he had put together of Fizzy growing up and just showing more of their family and their situation so I could get a good feel of how important this was to them.  And that’s when I knew what needed to be done.”

Ellen obviously knows the answer, but prompts Harry anyway.  “What was that?”

“I’d been wanting to make a documentary, or well, not make myself.  Have made, I suppose, anyway, I wanted to have some of these people allow their stories to be told.  Help spread awareness by making a quality documentary that could hopefully garner some attention in certain circles and therefore bring other people to realize how something so small to us can make a difference when it comes to feelings of acceptance for them.  We just hadn’t found the right fit, and then Louis and Felicite just fell right into our laps,” Harry explains.  “Almost like it was fate.”

“What are your hopes for this documentary?” Ellen asks.  Louis is interested in this answer.  He wasn’t sure how much hype they were wanting to build for it.  It was mainly his job to make it and get it done in time for the film festival deadlines.  Everything else was up to them.  He hadn’t even known that they’d be talking about it in such a large forum as national television.

Harry crosses his legs and lifts his hands so he can use them as he talks about their hopes for reaching people beginning at the film festival stage and then maybe going so far as a limited release in certain cities if they are lucky, but that what he really wants to do is just get it so that it brings this disease to people’s minds and that it educates them while also helping them realize we might think we know what a person has been through, but we never really can until we get to know them.

Ellen allows the cheers and does laud him on these goals before bringing it back to her signature quirky and lighthearted feel.  “This is all fantastic, Harry, and I do love hearing about it, but you’re evading my question still.  The fans want to know about you and Louis.  What is going on with you two?”

Harry gets a smirk and shakes his head.  “We’re working together,” he shrugs, while his expression obviously shows there’s more to it than that.

“Sure, Harry.  Just coworkers?” she presses.

Harry only shrugs in response, and she throws her hands in the air.  “There you go, I tried!  You try to get this one to talk!” she says as she flops back into her seat.  “After the commercial break we will have quite possibly the youngest Hamilton fan in the world on this very stage performing with Lin-Manuel Miranda himself, so stay tuned!”

Jay turns off the television and they just sit in sniffling and excited silence for about 5 seconds before the entire room becomes a muted vocal chorus with everyone talking on top of each other but still trying to be quiet so as not to wake the baby twins upstairs.

“Can you believe-”

“He just said my name on Ellen!”

“Lou, he’s out there advertising-”

“What a great kid, saying that-”

“Oh my God, I have to tweet this…”

Meanwhile, Louis stays quiet and picks up his phone again.  He realizes Harry had sent multiple messages while they were watching and Louis was so surprised by how the segment turned out, he hadn’t even noticed it vibrating under his thigh.

_Hazza: I knew you’d like those.  My dick was not screaming for anything other than some more attention from you._

_Hazza: So you’re watching it then?_

_Hazza: What do you think?_

_Hazza: God you went silent, I hope that’s not a bad sign._

Louis quickly responded.

_Lou: You better have the best dinner planned for me when you get here, because I’m going to rock your world afterwards._

It takes next to no time for Harry to send back a simple,

_Hazza: Fuck, yes.  Just you wait._

..*..*..*..

_Hazza: Are there any food allergies I should be made aware of or any other dislikes so I can plan accordingly?_

_Lou: We’re meeting in an hour.  You’re only just now thinking about this?_

_Hazza: I did recon, but before finalizing plans I wanted to be sure!_

_Lou: I hate tomato based pasta sauces, allergic to pine nuts, and cucumbers and almonds are acceptable only when they add crunch without adding their gross flavor._

_Hazza: Perfect.  See you soon xxx_

..*..*..*..

Louis hasn’t allowed himself to think about the fact that he actually thought the word love in regards to Harry, mostly because he has been busy, but also because he is scared.  Scared that he is in too deep too fast and how can he think he’s in love when they’ve only known each other less than two months and they’ve only seen each other in person once and they’ve never been on a date?  How does that happen?

Right now, though, Louis is mostly scared because Harry is supposed to be meeting him at his apartment in ten minutes. What if it is awkward when they see each other again? They only spent around an hour in each other’s presence over a month ago. This could very easily not be the incredible reunion Louis has been hoping for.

And what if they suddenly can't find anything to say to each other when they are in each other’s presence? And they fucking had _phone sex_ since the last time they saw each other and talked about having real life sex during their time in Chicago and holy shit! Louis even invited Harry to stay with him at his place instead of getting a hotel! What was he thinking? Obviously he wasn't or he never would have done that before they'd even spent any time alone!

Right as Louis begins to hyperventilate thanks to his overactive imagination and inner commentary, Harry knocks on his door. Or, Louis assumes it's Harry. He doesn't know who else it would be at 9:30 on a Thursday night.

He quickly adjusts his fringe, wipes his damp palms on his thighs and shakily opens the door. Standing in front of him is Harry in all his glory. He's wearing a bold pink button down open to show his chest along with tight black skinny jeans and some fringed boots. He is stunning.

“Hi,” Louis breaths out.  That seems to bring Harry back to himself, because he then lunges forward and wraps him in a hug. Louis automatically raises his arms to go around his waist and nuzzles his head into Harry’s shoulder.  The hug seems so natural, and Louis feels so at home in Harry’s arms.  His doubts that had been about ready to bury him earlier are already flying far away and Louis is more than happy to release them.  Let them fly away to the atmosphere, now that he’s in Harry’s arms he knows this path they’ve been trying to forge for themselves is the right one.

“So,” Harry says as he pulls back from the hug.  He scratches his forehead with his incredible fingers (and has Louis ever really noticed how amazing Harry’s hand is? Because wow.) and chuckles a little.  “I don’t want to bring my things in until the date has happened.  Let you still have the ability to say no and all in case it goes to shit, but do you think you’re ready to eat?”

Louis’ cheeks warm.  He loves knowing that they have all the cards on the table.  They know exactly what they are hoping to do here, what both of them are wanting from this.  They’ve actually talked at length about everything they are looking for with regards to relationships, settling down, and their hopes for family life in the future since Seattle.  They align so well with regards to all of that, Louis for a moment thought it all seemed too easy before he remembered who Harry is and that it won’t be easy at all.  He doesn’t mind though.  He feels like...not like he’s whole since he met Harry.  He already was whole before him, but more like his edges weren’t quite lined up.  Like Louis is a puzzle and all the pieces were there and most of them were even in place, but the last few had finally slotted into place thanks to Harry.  

Louis just watches Harry for another second, considering exactly how hot it is that this man in front of him wants the same things he does, and then finally nods.  He grabs his phone and keys, locks the door, and shoves both of them in his pockets before heading out to the car with Harry.

“So, you still haven’t told me your plan,” Louis points out as he buckles his seatbelt.  He looks to the left, and sees Harry checking the adjustments on his mirrors before backing out of his parking spot.  

“I know, I did that on purpose.  Mostly because if it’s shit, I can just claim I didn’t know any better,” he chuckles.  “But, since I have you here now, I will tell you.  I’m taking you on a picnic.”

Louis looks out the car window.  It’s far enough past the solstice that while the days are still long, it is mostly dark by 9:30.  

“Uh,” he hedges.  “You do realize most parks close at dusk, right?  And have you spent any amount of time in the midwest?  This might be Chicago, but we have these really annoying carnivorous bugs called mosquitos and they’re going to eat us alive even if you find a place for us to picnic?”

Harry continues driving, but does now look a bit nervous.  “I had considered the park thing and have it taken care of, but the mosquitos I didn’t.  Should we stop for some bug spray?”

Louis laughs.  “Yeah, probably.  I’d rather not look like I have the chicken pox in the morning.”

“Do you, uhm,” Harry pauses, looking nervous for the first time since he showed up on Louis’ doorstep.  “Do you mind grabbing it?  No one knows I’m in Chicago at the moment, and I’d rather keep it that way, if possible.  I’ll definitely pay you back!  God, I’m the worst date and it’s barely started…”

“Harry, it’s fine,” Louis insists, reaching out and touching Harry’s forearm.  He loves being able to see his muscles flex as he shifts the gears and is glad to be able to touch it softly.  “I am more than able to cover some bug spray.”

They stop by a gas station and Louis jogs in, grabs the spray, and heads back out to the car.

“Okay, now we’re good.  Onward, good steed!”

“Are you calling me a horse?” Harry laughs.

“Only if you’re asking me to ride you,” Louis spits out before slapping a hand to his mouth.  Oh my God, he did not mean to say that.  

Harry lets out a honk like a donkey braying and begins laughing so hard Louis is glad they haven’t pulled back out onto the road yet.  

“I did not expect that, but excellent retort, I give you an A+ for thinking on your feet and making that a fantastic sex joke,” Harry praises, finally putting the car into gear.  “Now, on to our destination.”

They pull up in front of an elementary school and Louis sees a car parked in the otherwise empty lot.

“Interesting choice,” Louis smirks.  He climbs out of the car and begins to spray himself with the bug repellent.  “I have to say, this is already the most romantic date I’ve ever been on.  Choking on fumes of bug spray in the parking lot of an elementary school.  Your wooing abilities are even higher than I was projecting them to be!”

“Fuck off,” Harry laughs before grabbing the spray for himself.  “Don’t judge me until you see the setup, okay?  I did research for this.”

Louis hums in agreement, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.  Harry finishes covering any exposed skin and loops his arm around Louis’ shoulders.  Louis pulls his arm out and easily puts it around Harry’s waist.  His stomach is going crazy, and he has chill bumps all over his arms from Harry’s easy brushes of his fingers on Louis’ arm.  Louis doesn’t think he will ever get used to this, but he sure hopes he is given the chance.

They round the corner to the playground and Louis begins giggling once he sees what Harry has done.  He has placed a blanket beneath what the kids at his school always called the A Frame.  He isn’t sure if it is actually still made anymore, as he doesn’t see them at any of the parks they take his siblings to, but it was the most popular piece on the playground when he was growing up.  He had told Harry about how much he loved playing on his school’s A Frame before they tore it down a few years ago, and now Harry has somehow found a school that still has one.  

“You’re ridiculous,” Louis says fondly, squeezing Harry’s hip.

“I hope that’s a good thing?”

“The best,” Louis agrees before walking towards it.  He pauses, causes Harry to stop walking as well.  He looks around the playground and still doesn’t see who might belong to the car out front.

“What are you looking for?” Harry asks.

“The owner of that car out front?  No one would be inside the school right now?” Louis explained.  

“Oh,” Harry laughs before starting walking again.  “That was Niall and Jon.  They were finishing the setup and watching it so I could come get you and bring you back without anyone messing with it.”

“You recruited helpers?” Louis smiles.  “That’s actually really sweet.”  

They settle on the blanket and the first thing Harry pulls out of the cooler is not food, but a mini lantern to light their blanket with.  Harry then pulls out some croissants, a tupperware filled with something white, some grapes, and carrot sticks.

“I have no idea what the white stuff is, but I will warn you now, I hate carrots.  I won’t be eating those.  The grapes, however, I will gladly claim as mine.”

“Homemade Chicken Salad,” Harry announces, shaking the tupperware.  “With grapes, because obviously that’s the best way to make it.  I thought you might not like carrots, so I also brought broccoli and ranch dressing.”

Louis makes grabby hands, and Harry dutifully hands those containers over, his dimple creating even darker shadows across his cheek.  Louis happily munches on the fresh broccoli and grapes while Harry cuts through the croissants and carefully fills them with the Chicken Salad.  

They sit in silence, listening to the cicadas, completely at peace.  Louis’ mind isn’t going everywhere like it usually does in the quiet, though.  It’s calm, like Harry has a soothing effect on even his brain.  Louis is beginning to think that Harry is a balm made just for him and helping him still be himself but also be better than he was.  Calmer and more focused.  Louis can’t explain it.

Harry has just put each of their sandwiches onto plates and is handing Louis his when there’s a flash of lightning immediately followed by a clap of thunder and Louis jumps.  His sandwich falls to the blanket and he scrabbles to get it before the insides fall out as rain begins to pour down.  Both he and Harry scramble to get their food put away and gather the blanket, running for the car.  By the time they get there, they are completely soaked through so once Louis has tossed his armload into the trunk, he begins splashing around in the parking lot puddles.

“I love puddle jumping!” he yells over the downpour.  There’s still thunder in the distance, but nothing too close so he continues to play in the rain a little longer.  He doesn’t figure it’ll do him much more damage considering.

Harry just watches him, his hair flopping into his eyes, before he throws his arms out and belts, “I’m siiiiiiinging in the rain!  I’m siiiiiiinging in the rain!  What a gloooooorious feeeeeling, I’m haaaaaappy again!”  Louis begins to cackle and scream along to the song as he keeps jumping around before there’s a lightning bolt that comes crashing seemingly right beside them.  They both hurry into the car, laughing still, and sit there, dripping for a second.

Louis looks up through his dripping lashes and sees Harry staring at him intently.

“Do you realize how insanely gorgeous you are?” he asks quietly.

Louis’ brows furrow.  “Me?  What are you talking about, you’re the one who isn’t even human.  You’re too pretty to be the same species as me and the rest of us.”

Harry slowly shakes his head, his eyes roaming Louis’ entire face, reaching out and brushing some of the rain off his forehead so it doesn’t go into his eyes.

“You just don’t get it,” he whispers.  “I cannot stop thinking about you.  From the moment I saw your face on the screen of my computer, watching that video you sent, I knew.  I knew you were something special.”

“Yeah?” Louis asks, unable to take his eyes off of Harry’s face.  “Hope I haven’t disappointed.”

Harry doesn’t even bother to answer before pulling Louis in for a kiss.  

It is incredibly familiar, like they had done this thousands of times before, rather than it being their first with each other.  It is also incredibly hot.  Louis can’t even compare it to his previous kisses, this one is in an entirely different realm.  The way Harry knows how to put the exact pressure that makes Louis lean into it while also feel like he is so weak he can’t keep himself upright, the way Harry somehow knows how much Louis loves having his neck petted just below his ears.  

The way Harry groans and wants more when Louis takes a chance and nips a little at his lip.

“My place?” Louis gasps as Harry nips and sucks at the spot just below his jaw where it is incredibly sensitive.  He can feel the blood rushing there, and he has no idea how he has any left to spare considering how hard he is in his jeans right now.

“But that means we have to stop so I can drive,” Harry whines.

Louis chuckles.  “Just for a minute or two,” he assuages.  Giving a huff, Harry lifts himself from Louis’ neck and buckles himself in.

“Fine, but when we get there we are getting naked and I am licking every bit of rainwater off of you.”

Louis closes his eyes and drops his head back against the headrest.  “Fuck, you’re going to kill me.”

Harry lets out a low chuckle and pulls out of the parking lot.  They stay pretty quiet as they drive back to Louis’, letting the rain pounding on the roof be their soundtrack.  Louis tries to focus on anything except the fact his dick is still fully hard, but nothing works.  How can it, when he keeps looking over at the man sitting beside him, periodically lit by streetlights, looking sinfully gorgeous?  Louis just keeps imagining Harry’s hands on him, mouth on him, dick in him.  Or, maybe the other way around.  Oh God, he really needs to change this line of thinking.

Louis shifts in his seat again, making Harry laugh at the fact that Louis cannot seem to sit still.  Once they are at the stoplight right before his complex, Harry’s hand drifts from the gearshift to Louis’ thigh and slowly makes it’s way up, softly brushing his cock.  Louis lets out a whimper, causing Harry to give it a quick squeeze before pulling it back to shift into second when the light turns green.

They park as close as they can and leave the food and blankets in the car, running despite being already wet.  It’s actually slower going than Louis expected.  His wet skinnies are clinging tightly to his legs and restricting his movement, so he feels like a penguin waddling as fast as he can to get inside.  He would be laughing if the restrictions didn’t also cause a _lot_ of unintended friction for his cock, only making it worse.

Harry beats him, somehow, and they run to the elevator to take them up to Louis’ apartment.  Once inside, Louis pushes the button for his floor and turns to Harry.  He steps forward and continues until Harry is pushed back against the wall, Louis’ hands gripping his hips.  Louis leans forward, and starts nosing against Harry’s neck, reaching out and licking his collarbones peeking out from the neck of his shirt.  Harry shudders a bit at the sensation, making Louis smile and bite at the same spot.

“Fuck,” Harry whispers, reaching around and gripping Louis’ ass.  “Do you even realize how much you drive me crazy?”

The elevator dings and opens the doors, so Louis grabs Harry’s hand and walks as quickly as he can in his wet pants to his door.  He finds his keys in his pocket and unlocks the door, pulling Harry in behind him.

Lights still off, they begin kicking off their shoes and Harry says, “Nice place.”

Louis giggles and says, “Yeah, thanks,” at the same time he spins around and pins Harry to the door.  “I need you to get your clothes off as soon as possible.”

He can feel Harry nodding his head, so he grinds up against him as a promise for what’s to come and places a quick and filthy kiss on Harry’s mouth before dragging him behind him to his bedroom.  Once there, Louis begins peeling his shirt off and letting it squelch onto the threadbare carpet.  Harry seems to be doing the same, based on the sounds coming from right beside him and they both hop around trying to peel off their soaking wet jeans.  

Right as Louis bounces over to where his bedside light is and turns on the soft light, he sees Harry completely flop to the floor with his legs still bound at his thighs in his skin tight pants.  

“Oh shit!” Louis says before laughing and rushing over to Harry.  He only has one leg still stuck in his jeans himself, so he’s faring a bit better, but he’d rather Harry not be injured before getting him in bed.  “Are you alright?” he asks, only slightly interrupted by giggles.

“Physically I’m fine, emotionally i’m bruised,” Harry murmurs from his spot, face down on the carpet.

“Oh God,” Louis laughs.  “I’m so sorry, I can’t help it.  Here, let me help you.”

“No, no.  It’s okay.  I think I see my pride somewhere down there,” Harry says, not able to keep himself from laughing through the whole phrase.  By the time he’s spit it all out, he’s full blown cracking up and has to roll to his back to breathe properly.  “Okay, but honestly, I might need your help getting out of these.  They were not meant for getting caught in the rain, they were just meant to help my ass look great.”

“Well, they definitely succeeded there,” Louis agrees, before finally ripping his jeans off the rest of the way.  He kneels down beside Harry, and begins to push and pull at his jeans, doing anything he can to get them further down his legs.  Harry really isn’t helping at all, randomly kicking his legs and giggling over the entire situation.

“God, just stay still, will you?” Louis snickers.  Harry finally does, and Louis is able to free him completely. It’s then that they are both able to catch their breath and remember why they’re here.  Louis’ eyes drag down Harry’s body, naked other than his underwear, and Louis is breathless.  He has obviously seen photos of Harry shirtless, but seeing his tattoos and muscles in person seriously has Louis questioning what the hell he did in a previous life to deserve this.  

Then he sees Harry’s legs.

His thighs are perfection.  They are muscled and thick and smooth and lead down to gorgeously shaped calves.  If Louis’ erection had flagged at all, it is definitely back to its height.

Louis finally drags his eyes back up to Harry’s face and finds him checking Louis out as best he can from his position as well.  Pupils blown, Harry sits up quickly, his abs making Louis almost drool, and he reaches out for Louis’ neck.  Petting his hair that is just long enough to curl there, Harry then pulls Louis into him and Louis completely melts at the feeling of his lips on his own.  He rises up on his knees and starts to crawl closer to Harry, but immediately stops and pulls back causing Harry to latch onto his neck.

“As hot as floor sex sounds, I’m getting carpet burn just getting,” Louis gasps as Harry gives a sharp bite to his collarbone before trying to continue without sounding like a moan, “to you, so I really think we need to move to the bed.”  Harry grunts in agreement before finally shifting so he can get his legs underneath himself.

They both stand up, but as Louis turns to go towards the bed Harry wraps his arms around him and starts laving at his neck.

“Fuck, Lou.  The rainwater on you tastes incredible,” he murmurs into Louis’ skin.  Louis slowly goes towards the bed, Harry following so he can stay connected.  His entire body feels like it is on fire, with it spreading from all the points where their skin is touching when Harry continues setting him aflame with his words as well.  “I was serious before, I want to lick it off your entire body.”

That’s as much as Louis can handle.  He turns quickly inside of Harry’s arms and pushes on his shoulders, forcing him to fall backwards onto the bed.

“You can’t just say shit like that and not expect me to respond,” he says.  His voice comes out almost as a growl so he doesn’t even recognize himself.  “Scoot to the top of the bed, I’ve gotta get the supplies.”

It had been so long since Louis had been with anyone else that he had to go out and buy a new box of condoms in preparation for what he hoped would happen tonight.  He walks to where he left them in the bathroom earlier before ripping open the box and tearing one off the loop from within.  He turns back towards his bedroom and through his door he can see Harry laying sprawled on his bed, slowly jacking himself off.

Louis hurries back in, fumbles to open the top drawer of his bedside table, and finally grabs the lube as well.  He tosses the bottle and the condom to the bed, noting Harry’s smirk, and climbs up himself.  Louis bats Harry’s hand away before leaning over him and, with his mouth poised directly above Harry’s, he breathes, “I’m gonna take care of you tonight.”

Harry whines and throws his head back, baring his neck so Louis can’t help but lean down and nip at it.  

“You taste so delicious,” he groans into his neck before continuing to kiss down to his shoulder.  The way his muscles ripple beneath his skin has Louis going completely mad.  “Wanna fuck you,” he says before biting down right onto the ship Harry has tattooed there.

“Yes, God, please,” Harry nods, starting to writhe beneath Louis.

Louis continues his ministrations, focusing on Harry’s nipples, the outline of his butterfly, and his well maintained line of hair leading to his groin.  Louis can see goosebumps rising up wherever he touches Harry, which makes him think that he might be just as affected by Louis as Louis is by him.  

He swipes at the lube that landed next to Harry’s hip and hears it give a soft _snick_ as it opens.  He makes sure to warm it on his fingers before leaning down and taking the head of Harry’s entirely hard cock into his mouth.  The sounds Harry makes causes Louis to have to close his eyes and pause everything he is doing so as to regain control of himself.  This is going to go entirely too fast if Harry continues looking and sounding like that.

But really, how is Louis supposed to help it?  Finally moving again, Louis works his finger in and begins pumping to get Harry prepared, Harry never stops moaning.  His voice is deeper than usual, but sounding just like the velvet covered rocky tone he has by the end of every concert he puts on.  It’s causing Louis’ entire body to feel like it isn’t his own, it’s too hot, almost like it is glowing from within.  Who knows, maybe Louis is glowing and he just can’t tell because his source of light is right in front of him.

Louis continues, adding one then two more fingers, all while working his mouth over Harry’s perfect cock.  It’s the most beautiful dick Louis has ever seen, and he can’t wait to have it inside of him, but right now he also can’t wait to see what Harry feels like completely surrounding him.

“Fuck,” Harry moans again before yanking on Louis’ hair.  “Lou, Lou, Lou, gotta stop, please,” he whimpers, clenching around Louis’ fingers.  “‘M gonna go if you don’t, please stop, wanna go with you inside me.”

“Shit,” Louis whispers, slowly pulling his fingers out and wiping them on his bedspread.  Licking his lips, he shifts forward to place another kiss on Harry’s mouth, wet and dirty so Harry can taste himself on Louis’ tongue, before sitting back on his feet.  

He rips open the condom, but it takes him a minute to make sure he doesn’t try putting it on inside out because he really doesn’t want to take the time to go back to the bathroom and grab another one if that’s the case.  He figures out the right way, works it down his own throbbing dick, and once it’s on he has to grab himself around the base forcefully.  Closing his eyes and taking deep breaths, he gets to the point where he feels like his stomach is just a hotbed of coals rather than a raging fire, and lubes himself up.

Adding a little more to Harry’s entrance to ensure he’s fully prepped, Louis asks softly, “Ready?”

Harry lifts his eyes from where he can see Louis holding himself to Louis’ own and Louis feels nearly bowled over by the emotion swirling within.  Everyone always says that a person’s eyes are the gateway to their soul, and he does believe that to a certain extent, but Louis has never in his entire life felt like he could _feel_ what they are feeling simply by looking into their eyes.  Not until now.

Louis isn’t sure if he’s imagining it, or if it is really happening, but his heart jolts, almost as if it has picked up a different rhythm it needs to be in time with.  Once it does, Louis feels light.  Like nothing can go wrong.  Like he is right where he should be doing exactly what he needs to be.  Like he’s loved and doing the best he can to convey his own love.  All from a single glance, a connection, through their eyes and now possibly their hearts.

Harry swallows and softly says, “Yes.”

Louis nods, feeling tears prickle behind his eyes.  He has no idea why his crying tendency decided now was an appropriate time to manifest itself, but he attempts to blink it away so he can focus on making this as good as he possibly can for Harry.  He pushes his cock in carefully, reading Harry’s face for any possible sign of discomfort.  Harry closes his eyes and his jaw goes slack as a look Louis can only describe as wonder comes onto his face.  

Louis doesn’t stop until he is bottomed out, and only then does he allow himself to freeze and take a deep breath.  He’s glad for all of his yoga videos he has done because he has never needed to focus on breathing quite as much as he does now.  Harry just seems to take his breath away, makes Louis feel like he’s losing control of himself while also allowing him to feel like he has all the control he needs.  It’s a perfect balance of chaos, and somehow it works.  Somehow it is perfect and exactly what he needs.

Their bodies begin to work together, making those coals that were softly burning inside of Louis begin to start flames again.  The lightness he felt seems to become more pervasive and Louis feels like if he doesn’t kiss Harry again right now he might float away and burn up completely.

He lunges forward, sloppily licking into Harry’s mouth, claiming it for his own.  Louis can feel his sweat dripping onto Harry, and just as he leans back to apologize for being gross, he realizes he can’t because he is crying.  Harry looks concerned for a moment once he realizes that it isn’t sweat hitting his face but tears.  He lifts his hands from Louis’ torso and stills his body to focus on wiping Louis’ face.  

Still hard and still within Harry, Louis ducks his face down to his neck, so he can’t see him.

“What’s wrong?  Oh my God, are you okay?” Harry asks.

Louis nods and can’t help smiling.  He loves him so much and he realizes he can’t hold back that information, even if it is too soon and too much.  He has to let it out so he doesn’t continue crying during what could be the most beautiful, emotional, physical moment of his entire life.

“I just, sorry.  I’m a crier, I cry at the drop of a hat, but I just…”  Louis pushes himself up to look Harry in the eyes again before he continues.  This needs to be said directly to his face so he knows exactly how much Louis means what he’s going to say.

Just like the first time he met Harry and just like moments before, Louis’ entire body seems to sync with Harry’s once their eyes meet.  He can tell that Harry knows what he is going to say before he says it, and the look on Harry’s face isn’t one of fear or disappointment, but one of excitement.

Louis leans down and kisses Harry softly.  He couldn’t leave his perfectly shaped lips without a physical show of the words he is about to say for the first time to someone outside of his family.

“I love you, Harry.  So much.  I know this is so cliche and fast, but I do, and being here with you now, like this, is just a lot.  But that’s why I’m crying.  Because I really, _really_ love you.”

Harry has a tear running down his face as well, and Louis shifts his weight to be held on his left arm so his right can lift and wipe his tear away just as he did for Louis moments ago.

“I love you too, Louis.”  Harry takes a deep breath before his grin spreads wide and lopsided across his entire face.  “I love you, I love you, I love I love I love O-lou-via.”

“Oh my God, you did not just make a pun based on one of your own songs with my dick up your ass,” Louis laughs, leaning his head down to Harry’s chest.  “We were having this beautiful moment, and then you go and do that!”

Harry begins to giggle as well, but it causes both of them to groan and brings them back to why they are here in the first place.  Louis pushes in a bit more, causing Harry to gasp, and soon words are forgotten.  They kiss tenderly as their bodies slide against and within each other until they both feel as if they are completely on fire, never to return as they were before.

..*..*..*..

_Hazza: We totally played it cool back there_

_Hazza: I don’t think anyone knew anything is going on with us yet_

_Lou: Yeah, we played it so cool that Niall wouldn’t stop leering at me and sending me thumbs up signs, my mom all out asked why I didn’t introduce you as my boyfriend, Lottie asked how you were in bed, and Fizzy asked how long we’d been together without my having told her.  So we definitely got one past them._

_Hazza: Oh._

_Hazza: Why didn’t they do any of that to me?_

_Hazza: I mean Niall.  Not your family.  Your mom really wanted to know why you didn’t introduce me as your boyfriend?_

_Hazza: That’s kinda cute._

_Lou: Yeah.  I told her it’s cause I haven’t asked if that’s the title you want yet._

_Hazza: I’d kinda love it actually._

_Boyfriend: Yeah.  Me too._

..*..*..*..

Harry has to leave only a few days after so he can get back to work recording his next album.  Louis is fine with this, as it allows him to focus more on the documentary, but after having the chance to have Harry with him for a few days Louis realizes he had already gotten used to his presence and that short time together was not nearly enough.

Louis quickly loses himself in getting Fizzy’s portion of the documentary exactly how he wants it, though, and before he knows it Irving is flying him to LA in order to be able to edit it using the better equipment he has available there.  Louis definitely isn’t complaining, he’s never been to LA and he has missed the nicer programs he used to be able to use in college.

Their deadline is quickly approaching, and Louis finds himself holed up in the office provided at Irving’s company building.  The transitions are going well, Louis thinks he has everything balanced, edited, and clipped how he wants it, but it is still too long.  They really need this to be no longer than an hour and a half, and currently it is sitting at an hour and 42 minutes.  That’s only 12 minutes longer, but that 12 minutes is more than they wanted and Louis is having a really hard time figuring out what to pull.  

He is watching the documentary for what feels like the 72nd time that day, when someone knocks on the door.  Louis rewinds the film a bit to see if there’s a way he can shorten a little bit from the snippet they had included about the reservation in New Mexico he had just watched while also calling out, “Come in!”

The door opens and Louis doesn’t acknowledge them until he has pulled up the editor on another screen beside him and started clicking away like mad.  He runs the scene a few more times with those few seconds pulled out, before happily humming to himself and turning to see who joined him.

He looks up to see Harry, smiling and holding a container of soup.

“Oh my God, is that pho?” Louis asks, looking up at Harry with wide eyes.  Louis had said last night how much he was craving it, and now Harry has magically appeared with some.

“It is!  I wasn’t sure how you liked it, so I just got it made how I like it, only without mushrooms.  Hope that works for you.”  He sets it down, along with two spoons, before turning Louis in the chair back to the screens he was so focused on only moments before.  “It’s past 7 now, have you eaten anything today?”

Harry begins to massage Louis’ shoulders, and the goosebumps Louis has now become accustomed to every time he’s around Harry pop up again.  He leans his head forward, feeling his body relax already.

“I uh...grabbed some hot chocolate from the break room for lunch a few hours ago,” he says.  “And you made that omelette for breakfast, so yeah.  I ate a little.”

“Louis,” Harry scolds softly, now running his thumbs up Louis’ neck and onto his scalp to try to release some of his tension there.  “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“I’ll be fine, but this has to be submitted in two days so…”  Louis’ voice drops off into a groan.  “Oh my God, I swear your hands are magical.”

“That is more information than any of us need,” a new voice from the doorway says sarcastically.  Louis lifts his head and dazedly looks over his shoulder to see Jeff there in the open doorway.  “Hey, just coming to see how it’s coming?”

“Got it down to only about 12 minutes over goal now,” Louis says.  “Hoping to have it down to where it should be by the end of the night.”

Jeff gives a bit smile and says, “Perfect!  I’ll make sure that Erin stays here to help with anything else you might have.”  He waves at them both before heading out again.

“Here, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out…” Louis leaves his sentence hanging as he goes back and scrolls to the part of the film he has been considering pulling but isn’t sure if it is needed.  “Okay, I showed you the latest version last night, right?”  

Harry nods as he sits down and removes the lid from the pho.  “Yeah, it was really great!”

“Thanks,” Louis says distractedly.  “But still too long by like 20 minutes.  So I’ve been cutting things down all day, but they are just tiny things.  But I got to thinking, what if I cut this whole part here?”  He hits play and a section that he personally is attached to where it talks about the families and some of the effects for them goes on.

Once the scene is done, he pauses it again and turns to Harry.  “Technically, we have already alluded to a lot of what is said here.  It does go into further detail, which I personally like, but again I’m not sure if it is because I’m biased as I am one of the family members it represents. If we cut this, we’d only be 4 minutes over our goal length, and I think that is okay though of course I have to double check.  Thoughts?”

Harry slurps some wet bok choy into his mouth and chews, pushing the pho towards Louis so he can also have a bite.

“I think that, like you said, it is discussed at least in part in other parts so people can still get the sentiment that you are going for here.  How about this, take it out, go through the film once more to see if there’s anything else you think you might be able to snip from, and then we can watch it in it’s entirety together to see how it flows without that section.”

Louis bites off some of the rice noodles and allows the rest to fall back into the takeaway bowl.  

“Sounds great.”  He’s already turning back to the screens as Harry rises again.  “Where you going?”

“While you run through the rest of that, I actually have a few things I need to finish of my own, so I’m going to take care of that and be back to watch it with you.  Then I can focus entirely on the hopeful final cut.”

Louis nods and gets up from his seat for the first time in what might have been hours.  He stretches and yawns, his joints popping a little from the unexpected movement.  Once done, he opens his eyes and walks over to his boyfriend.

Boyfriend.  It’s still so new, he sometimes forgets, but not for long.  He wraps his arms around Harry’s neck, only lifting his heels a little so he can reach Harry’s mouth.  He gives him a chaste kiss before nuzzling into the crook of his neck.  

“I love you a lot, you know that?” he sighs as he relaxes into Harry’s warmth.

“Yeah,” Harry responds, giving him a sweet kiss just below his ear.  “I love you too.”

Louis hums, content, before backing up and heading back into his workspace.  “Thanks again for the pho!  See you in a little bit.”

Harry heads out, and Louis gets back to work.

..*..*..*..

_LB: H!  He loved it!  He said the final cut was perfect and he’s submitting it ASAP!_

_HB: I knew he would!  I told you last night it was perfect!_

_LB: Yes, yes, you were right, as always._

_HB: Glad you’re finally recognizing this._

_LB: Mmhmm.  BTW, why is your name in my phone now “HB”?  What does that even mean?_

_HB: Harry Boyfriend._

_HB: You’re LB in mine.  :D_

_LB: for Louis Boyfriend?_

_HB: Yep._

_LB: Sap._

_HB: You’re keeping it though, aren’t you._

_LB: You can’t prove anything._

_LB: Okay, yes.  I am._

_HB: Sap._

..*..*..*..

_January 2017_

“Oh my God, how does anyone breathe here?  I’m gonna die!” Louis complains as they hike up Main Street.  Louis slows even further as he and Harry continue the climb to the Egyptian theater.  

“We’re almost there, I can see the sock shop we stopped at earlier!” Harry says.

“You know what?  It’s not going to win any awards anyway, so you just go on and represent the documentary should they actually mention it.  Okay?  I’ll just be here, dead on the sidewalk, while everyone else tramples me.”  Louis makes his way through the crowded sidewalk to the shop that has a nice ledge by it’s windows like they knew Louis would need to rest.

“Come on, Lou.  It’s not that bad.”

Louis levels his gaze at Harry.  “Harold.  It’s something ridiculous like 27,000 ft elevation here-”

“Only like 7,000 but sure,” Harry interrupts.

“-and you can breathe just fine since you’re an alien.  I, however, am a weak human who needs oxygen to breathe and live and therefore need to rest before my lungs give out, okay?”

Harry rolls his eyes, but looks fondly at him.  “Jump on my back.”  He turns around, bends his knees so he’s lower to the ground, and holds his arms out so he can catch Louis’ legs.

“What?” Louis questions, looking at him like he’s insane.

“Come on,” Harry says, flapping his arms a bit and causing people to have to skirt around him.  “Hop up.  I’m gonna give you a piggy back ride the rest of the way to the theater.”

“Uh, no actually.  You’re not.  Because we have five million layers of clothing on in order to not entirely freeze, it’s dark out, the sidewalk is covered in ice, and we’re about to touch the sky so I would rather not fly off into the atmosphere when you inevitably drop me.”

“I won’t drop you.  Now come on.”  Louis kicks at some slush beneath his shoes and immediately regrets it.  He can feel the moisture already soaking into his socks.  Another gust of wind makes it’s way through the crowd, causing Louis to shiver.

“Louis,” Harry argues.  “I refuse to let you freeze out here so get up or I am going to carry you like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.”

Louis stands up reluctantly and forges his way back into the crowd.  He imagines he could actually enjoy Park City if it weren’t so fucking high and so fucking cold.  How is he supposed to be able to breathe with the air being so thin and the wind constantly forcing its icy way through your layers?

Soon enough, they make it to the Egyptian and wait in line to show their credentials and be allowed in.  Tonight are the awards for the festival, and considering Louis went out and saw as many films and documentaries as he possibly could, he already knows they won’t be winning anything but he didn’t want to give up the opportunity to be surrounded by so many incredible people.  He probably should apologize to Harry for being such a pain climbing up to get here, but it can wait.  He doesn’t feel quite ready to yet.

They take their seats and watch as everyone else files in.  Louis had met so many incredible people and big names these past ten days or so and it still seems surreal.  He is also amazed that so many people wanted to see the documentary he had made.  It was so very cool to be able to meet people and talk to them about congenital atrichia afterwards, discuss ways they can get involved and help educate others.  He is just so excited that people didn’t just watch it and blow it off, some of them truly took the information they were given and thought about it further and Louis really can’t ask for anything more than that.

The awards get started and as expected, they last forever.  Once they finally get to the documentary awards, Louis perks up a little bit.   _Skin Deep_ is listed as a finalist for a few of them, even if he doesn’t think anything would happen.  He is a bit hopeful about the audience award though he refuses to admit it.  Louis really is wanting to at least be an honorable mention.

Louis’ mind has wandered a little bit, thanks to Harry placing his hand a little higher on his thigh than is probably publically acceptable, when Louis suddenly hears, “...goes to _Skin Deep_!”  

Louis’ jaw drops and he is pulled in for a hug with Harry before it fully sinks in.  He turns and begins his walk to the stage, seeing “U.S. GRAND JURY PRIZE: DOCUMENTARY” projected on the main screen and Louis is now close to tears.  He was honored just to be named as a finalist for that one, he never thought they would actually win.  He gets up to the stage, shakes a few hands, and looks out at everyone in the audience.

“I didn’t expect to win anything, so I don’t have anything prepared and I apologize in advance,” he says into the microphone and everyone laughs.  “ _Skin Deep_ really isn’t my story to tell, but I’m so glad I was able to have a part of it.  It all started because I decided I wanted to document my own sister’s journey and maybe someday make it into something worth sharing.  Thanks to a seemingly random twist of fate last summer, the opportunity all but fell into my lap.  I’m so glad I was able to tell this story and open the discussion of congenital atrichia to a further audience through this.  It has already changed my life so much, and I know it will continue to have an impact, hopefully on others as well as me.  Thank you so very much for this award, it is truly an honor.”  

He raises the little trophy, and turns to walk the way indicated.  They pull him off to the side though, and ask him to stay there for just a minute.  Confused, Louis does as instructed, though he really just wants to get back to his seat next to Harry and cry.  The presenter for the next award stands up and talks about how many people attended documentary showings and how many voted for the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary before finally naming the honorable mentions.   _Skin Deep_ sadly isn’t listed making Louis even more lost as to why he was asked to stay behind.  

“The winner of the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary is, once again, _Skin Deep_!”  Louis really is crying by the time he walks back out on stage.  He takes the second little trophy and makes some short and probably indistinguishable thank you speech before going back to his seat.  

His mind is whirling and he isn’t able to concentrate on anything happening around him for the rest of the awards.   _Skin Deep_ really wasn’t his story to tell, but all he can think about is the fact that this is the perfect ending to the beginning of so many changes in his life, and he cannot be happier about the man sitting beside him for all of it.

..*..*..*..

Harry walks into the hotel room he’s been staying in for this last leg of filming in France before they head up to England.  He’s exhausted, but in the very best way.  Closing the door, he heads over to the window and closes the blinds so he can strip down to something more comfortable.  He’s always hated the constriction of clothes, and for this movie he’s in constant layers of them.  Nothing feels better than getting home at night and removing everything except his underwear and lounging in bed.

He tosses his socks over to what he has deemed his dirty clothes suitcase, leaves his shorts and tee next to the bed in case he needs to go out for anything later, and throws himself onto the bed.  He takes a few deep breaths, focusing on counting to eight on the exhale, with his face planted firmly into the mattress.  Once his body has released the tension of the day, he allows himself to roll over and grab his phone from where he’d tossed it haphazardly upon arrival.

Harry quickly answers the good morning text his mom had sent him only about an hour ago, thanks time zones, and finds he also has a text from Niall.

_Nialler: Bro, check your email.  Like, your personal one, not your business one.  Nancy said something came for you to the charity and she promised it would be passed on.  Whatever it is, enjoy!_

Harry didn’t bother answering him yet, mostly because Niall acted like he hadn’t seen what was forwarded and Harry knows he has.  He goes to his neglected personal email and struggles to remember the password.  Once he does, he finds an email from Niall waiting with no explanation, only an attachment.  

_Harry: Dude.  If you even sent me porn to my email disguised as something related to the charity…_

He flips back to his work email and checks on a few things his assistant has sent to him regarding flight plans and his schedule once he reaches England before Niall responds.

_Nialler: I did that once in college and you’ll never let me forget!  This is legit.  Watch it, you won’t be sorry._

Harry goes back to his personal email and clicks on the attachment, turning his phone sideways so he can see the whole image.  

It opens showing four girls, all younger teenagers, set up in what looks like their living room like a band.  Suddenly, he hears mumbling in the background that sounds like the opening they used for his Olivia recording on the album.  The chords start up and the girls come to life, strumming on their wii guitars and the blonde one in the back actually hitting on the drums.  The one in front with a headscarf has hair that looks familiar enough, Harry is able to put it together.  This must be the recipient of his hair.

A broad smile crosses Harry’s face, and he can’t help but run a hand through his now shortly cropped hair.  The wig looks great, and the girl is having a great time whipping her head around, making the hair fly similarly to how Harry does it in concert.  The all look like they are having a blast lip syncing and dancing around, and honestly Harry is too.  The song fades out, and the volume from the girls comes back in with them all laughing at each other and teasing each other as it fades to black.

Harry, thinking it’s done, is about to hit the home button when the most gorgeous man he has possibly ever seen in his life pops up on the screen.  He’s wearing a blue shirt that makes his eyes almost glow as he gives a nervous smile and waves at the camera.

“Hi, uhm...I’m Louis.  Felicite Tomlinson, my sister, was the incredibly lucky recipient of the wig made from your hair donation.  Fizz, and all of us really, we were all so floored by your generosity that we had to find a way to thank you.  We thought a little music video inspired by you might be a fun way to do that.”

At this point, Harry is distracted by Louis biting his lip.  God, this man is perfection.  His hair sweeping across his forehead, his eyes piercing through the screen, his cheekbones that look unreal.  The softness of his lips is even balanced by just the right about of rough stubble on his chin and Harry might not be alive any longer.  He’s died from not being able to breathe due to this beauty on his screen.

Harry realizes Louis has started speaking again and he was so distracted by Louis’ mouth that he missed what was being said.  He rewinds to the lip biting and hits play again.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I also wanted to include just a little bit of a documentary I’ve been working on about my sister and our family for the past...forever really.  I thought that might really give you an idea of exactly how grateful we are that you chose this particular charity benefiting those with congenital atrichia.  So, once again, thank you so very much.”

The screen once again fades, but this time directly into snapshots of a little girl growing up bald.  The tenor that Harry can now recognize as belonging to her brother narrates her growing up years and explains some of her hardships specific to her.  Self consciousness, being bullied, not having many close friends outside of her family, and of course the financial burden the medical aspect placed on the family.  

As Felicite gets older, Harry notices more makeup being involved, short interviews with her and other family members, and the reasoning why she signed up for the wig in the first place.  It is such a sweet and loving depiction of this girl, Harry is so incredibly glad he made the decision he had to donate his hair and that Felicite, of all the people in the world, is the one to get it.

This time, the video fades to black and it really is over.  Harry remains still, phone poised above his head, but his mind is elsewhere, mostly on those incredible cheekbones and the hint of collarbones from the brother who so lovingly put all of this together.

Without a second thought, Harry pulls up his assistant’s contact information and his phone begins to ring.

“Hey, Em.  I’ve got a bit of a favor to ask of you.  I just got a thank you from the girl who was the recipient of the wig made from the hair I donated, and I would love to go meet her.  Think you could track her family down for me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Please reblog my fic post [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/152566492738/who-tells-your-story-33129-words-by-lululawrence) or feel free to check out my playlist I used for inspiration while writing [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/lululawrence/playlist/7d9aHVR0NFRbNMvaFURUXS).


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